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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
scarabs probably shouldn't be a fast attack choice to begin with though. They are meant to be the most common part of a necron army.

Ditto for rippers. Both should be an out of FoC unit where they don't take up a slot, but you still have to fill slots to take them.

And what happens when GW sticks their fingers in the pie? Some armies get shafted and lose out on tonnes of army builds while others basically play an unbound army. Better for everyone to play by 9th's psudeo unbound rules with some armies being weaker but at least legal because of the psudeo-random battlefield role they have been assigned.

Removing Scarabs the question then becomes why can I not take 3x3 Wraiths + 3x3 Ophydian Destroyers while you can take 6x5 Raptors? What harm is there in letting me build the list I want to build? It's way less likely to be game-breaking since there are more datasheets so the chance of all of them being OP is far lower. There will be a tonne of spammy lists that are trash (as Raptor spam likely would be) and then some things like Plagueburst Crawler spam was OP. Ro3 curbs that. FOC also curbs it, but there is no reason why some units are in the same battlefield role, they simply don't pose a problem when taken together.

Slipspace wrote:
Ah, the good old strawman fallacy.

Maybe I confused the people that want sub-factions to impact battlefield roles and the ones that wanted to bring back the FOC. I must have been wrong.

2 rule sets:

One based on 3rd-7th/HH call this Narrative.

One based on 8th-9th call this Matched.

Would also be splendid to help settle the which rule set is better debates when both are pushed as mainstream ways to play the game.

biggest change i would want is weapons options/sideboard. paying for a heavy or special weapon in a squad should just be a cost then choose said weapon at deployment. ditto for deploying a tank with weapons options.

In theory you would probably know what you were facing so imagine knowing there is a chaos knight warband taking over a minor mechanicum refinery planet then a nearby imperial guard regiment is assigned to go to the planet and before disembarking the commisar tells them since they were going to an ork infestation originally they need to keep to that plan and leave the meltas on the ship and take nothing but flamers.

In a perfect world it would be alternate unit deployment returning where the weapons options are chosen at the time of dropping the model or unit.

as for sideboard something like a 20% of the points can be swapped for other units at deployment to fit the battle so long as you do not go over points.

 vict0988 wrote:
Except the people that want the FOC chart don't want the same restrictions, they want their special snowflakes to ignore the FOC and everyone else to have far fewer options. Why should you be able to bring 6 Raptors but me not bring 6 Scarabs or even just 3 Scarabs and 3 Canoptek Wraiths. 3x20 Raptors is enough to make a Raptor army. 3x5 Raptors is already quite a bit.

WOW, you're being so disingenuous, just because i only listed 2 examples, you assume i don't want your necrons to get the same treatment?

And no, if i want my whole army to be with jump packs, 3x10 (the actual limit) isn't enough. I want to be able to run some anti-tank squads with melta AND some anti infantry squads with flamers. And to me, bringing squads of 10 is less sneaky than what i envision my NL warband to fight like. Small squads hidden away that pounce on their prey


Anyway, i'll say it again : GET RID OF THE FOC, put a limit on the datasheet themselves, allow subfactions to change the limits of certain units

I'm totally down for availability as a thing for sheets. It works and is easy to change for balance/fluff needs.

yeah, 40k and SW:legions are the only games i play that restrict you on unit type rather than the unit themselves.

It feels wrong in both games (little bit less so in Legions since there is not as many unit choices overall anyway).

Being unable to take a spawn because you already have 3 other FA is so stupid.
And not every army works with a rigid FoC so you can't even say its from a fluff perspective (and neither is it from a balance perspective since the game is unbalanced as it is anyway)

I think how Conquest handles it is interesting; each character can take a warband that has it's own composition, and it specifies what units are in his warband, up to 4 units. The choices are separated into Mainstay and Restricted; you can have as many Mainstay units as you want, but you can only have 1 restricted per Mainstay.

What's brilliant though is that the choices aren't uniform; some characters can take units that aren't available to others, and what's restricted to one warband can be mainstay to another.

You can probably do something like that with Subfactions in 40k.

Open FOC but keeping a rule of 3 or other unit cap limit is more restrictive than a FOC with ways to make units take up other slots.

Using the Night Lord Raptor Example:
In current 40k, you can not have more than 3 units of raptors period. Because of the unit cap of 3.
If using a HH style system with a rigid FOC but a Right of War that opens up the options: you could take 3 units of raptors in your 3 FA slots, but also take up to 6 more units in your 6 troop slots!

I think what the staunch anti-FOC fan's are overlooking is that the purpose of slot restriction rather than unit restriction ensure there's more meaningful choice. Sure you have 3 FA slots, and if you fill all 3 with the same unit, you now forgo the other options. If there's one option that is clearly superior then that's not a FOC issue, it's an internal unit balance issue, and lets face it that will happen with GW rules team...

Legitimately very interesting discussion going on here in regards to FOC, a lot of good points being made.

Not sarcasm, for the record.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Legitimately very interesting discussion going on here in regards to FOC, a lot of good points being made.

Not sarcasm, for the record.

pointing out that its not sarcasm like that somehow makes it sound even more like sarcasm lol

 vict0988 wrote:
Except the people that want the FOC chart don't want the same restrictions, they want their special snowflakes to ignore the FOC and everyone else to have far fewer options. Why should you be able to bring 6 Raptors but me not bring 6 Scarabs or even just 3 Scarabs and 3 Canoptek Wraiths. 3x20 Raptors is enough to make a Raptor army. 3x5 Raptors is already quite a bit.

Many Necron players want to do Canoptek armies, so I'm not sure what you're rambling about as most would support this to begin with. Or is this just old man yelling at cloud?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I'm not quite sure why having more options means that the FoC doesn't work, if the whole idea is to have you make choices. Unless your point is that people will just pick the best options, in which case it's a balance issue first and foremost.

Yeah, it's confusing to me that people complaint he old FOC would be too restrictive, when the whole point of suggesting its return is to introduce some meaningful restrictions (and therefore choices) in army building. If the old FOC did return there would certainly need to be changes to some of the Codexes and the slots some things occupy, but I'd always assumed that was taken as read.

Meaningful choices in army building happens with good internal balance, not the FOC. Or would you argue 7th Eldar were great under the old FOC?

Why is this an either/or choice? Restrictions and internal balance are both required to improve the game, IMO. I don't think anyone's suggested just bringing back the FOC would be some sort of magic bullet that immediately restores balance to the game. More restrictions on list building might help curb some of the current abuses, though, while also allowing balance to be more easily maintained because every army is working to the same restrictions.

It is based on your post.

And no, those restrictions don't actually JUST help. Despite what the other guy I replied to said, Blood Angels ARE an Assault Marine Chapter. Why shouldn't Chapters have a way to access more? 3×10 isn't broken but somehow 4×5 is? The FOC being brought back and GW's arbitrary rule of three are created out of their laziness to balance, not for balance itself.

The issue with the FOC approach is that it limits the builds an army can use. If I want to make an Ork Speed Freaks list, I must take X amount of troops and can only take a maximum of 3 units out of warbikes, deffkoptas, buggies, etc? That doesn't seem like a Speed Freaks army, it seems like a bog-standard Ork list with a handful of bikes.

Unless the FOC approach comes with options to change up the slots units take up. Like a Deffkilla Wartrike letting you take 3 buggies as troops/core/whatever or a Warboss on Bike letting you take bikers.

But then we're at the same point as the detachment scenario and we've spent all this time amending the rulebook and changed basically nothing, as I would just take an Outrider detachment and have 6 FA slots.

I don't personally see the issue with the Detachment system, or how it's a 'convoluted mess'. I think it works pretty well for allowing people to make the army they want to make.

If someone here does have an issue with it, please explain. My acceptance of the system may just be out of ignorance of the woes that other factions have.

Honestly just let us take anything and actually balance units lol.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Honestly just let us take anything and actually balance units lol.

yep

The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

 Tyran wrote:
The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

You'll be surprised to hear this but you could already have had 100% tank armies for the past 25yrs....

 Tyran wrote:
The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

But a standard FOC would also let you take entirely infantry or entirely vehicle lists in a lot of instances. Or so close to entirely one unit type that it's a moot point. Skew has always existed and always will, until there is an actual gameplay benefit/incentive to take a balanced list of varied unit types.

(I am aware that there are plenty of armies/lists that are doing well competitively that are a healthy mix of unit types, but my point about skew stands)

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

You'll be surprised to hear this but you could already have had 100% tank armies for the past 25yrs....

No, Knight different because legs

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

You'll be surprised to hear this but you could already have had 100% tank armies for the past 25yrs....

Mostly because of factions with ways around FOC restrictions like squadrons. The fact that it has been broken for the 25yrs shouldn't mean we should get to break it even more.

Moreover percentage based limits should be more effective at preventing such lists.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
The issue with the FOC approach is that it limits the builds an army can use. If I want to make an Ork Speed Freaks list, I must take X amount of troops and can only take a maximum of 3 units out of warbikes, deffkoptas, buggies, etc? That doesn't seem like a Speed Freaks army, it seems like a bog-standard Ork list with a handful of bikes.

Unless the FOC approach comes with options to change up the slots units take up. Like a Deffkilla Wartrike letting you take 3 buggies as troops/core/whatever or a Warboss on Bike letting you take bikers.

But then we're at the same point as the detachment scenario and we've spent all this time amending the rulebook and changed basically nothing, as I would just take an Outrider detachment and have 6 FA slots.

I don't personally see the issue with the Detachment system, or how it's a 'convoluted mess'. I think it works pretty well for allowing people to make the army they want to make.

If someone here does have an issue with it, please explain. My acceptance of the system may just be out of ignorance of the woes that other factions have.

There's nothing convoluted in it, it is a very simple system which offers real choice with effective costs and gains (those who think that 3 CP is not a cost should look at how many competitive lists run more than one detachment). FOC was a terrible system with no choices and one single structure which made zero sense for most non-imperial armies (oh you took 90 points of spore mines? It would be terribly unfluffy to let you play raveners with them), while preventing absolutely nothing in terms of exploits. Let it rest and never name it again.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

You'll be surprised to hear this but you could already have had 100% tank armies for the past 25yrs....

No, Knight different because legs

what are leman russes?

Rites of War is a great way. If you pick X you can take more of Y, but less of Z. It should change around the "FOC" to suit subfactions, with actual restrictions. So for example a speed freak Ork army may get unlimited buggies and such, but can't take any mega armor or things like that.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

You'll be surprised to hear this but you could already have had 100% tank armies for the past 25yrs....

No, Knight different because legs

Guard had troop tanks for a long time, BA could do full dreads as well, and then there was Orks, many times throughout 40k you could 100% be full vehicle lol.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The problem with letting us take everything is skew lists.

It doesn't really matter how well balanced a tank is, if you have a list made entirely of tanks then it becomes a question if your opponent brought enough anti-tank, and any anti-infantry weapons would be wasted.

Admittedly this is already an issue because Knights, but a complete lack of restrictions would make it worse.

You'll be surprised to hear this but you could already have had 100% tank armies for the past 25yrs....

No, Knight different because legs

Guard had troop tanks for a long time, BA could do full dreads as well, and then there was Orks, many times throughout 40k you could 100% be full vehicle lol.

I'm more referring to the fact that people just don't like Knights.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

I'm more referring to the fact that people just don't like Knights.

It's lingering disdain from the introduction of super heavies into the game proper when being a Lord of War actually had unique features to make it harder to kill, have unique damaging properties (strength D) and in general weren't really designed to be seen in large quantities outside of Apocalypse.

Knights today, where even a strength 1 could chip a wound. Yeah, much different.

VladimirHerzog wrote:what are leman russes?

Amishprn86 wrote:Guard had troop tanks for a long time

I played Guard from 3rd-5th and have no idea what you guys are talking about. You never could just forgo infantry and take all Russes in that era. And only in 5th could you really mass Russes thanks to squadrons.

Yeah, you could take Armored Fist squads and have lots of Chimeras- not tanks. In 3rd and 4th if you wanted a tank skew, you had to take the Armored Company list by opponent's permission and which came with a bunch of special rules to try to offset the skew.

 catbarf wrote:

VladimirHerzog wrote:what are leman russes?

Amishprn86 wrote:Guard had troop tanks for a long time

I played Guard from 3rd-5th and have no idea what you guys are talking about. You never could just forgo infantry and take all Russes in that era. And only in 5th could you really mass Russes thanks to squadrons.

Yeah, you could take Armored Fist squads and have lots of Chimeras- not tanks. In 3rd and 4th if you wanted a tank skew, you had to take the Armored Company list by opponent's permission and which came with a bunch of special rules to try to offset the skew.

I don't have the relevant books in front of me, but IIRC Imperial Armor 1 introduced the Armored Battle Group list back around 3e/3.5e (and it may have been in White Dwarf before that, though I can't be certain there). If memory serves, that list allowed for Leman Russes in the Troops slot.

Spoletta wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
The issue with the FOC approach is that it limits the builds an army can use. If I want to make an Ork Speed Freaks list, I must take X amount of troops and can only take a maximum of 3 units out of warbikes, deffkoptas, buggies, etc? That doesn't seem like a Speed Freaks army, it seems like a bog-standard Ork list with a handful of bikes.

Unless the FOC approach comes with options to change up the slots units take up. Like a Deffkilla Wartrike letting you take 3 buggies as troops/core/whatever or a Warboss on Bike letting you take bikers.

But then we're at the same point as the detachment scenario and we've spent all this time amending the rulebook and changed basically nothing, as I would just take an Outrider detachment and have 6 FA slots.

I don't personally see the issue with the Detachment system, or how it's a 'convoluted mess'. I think it works pretty well for allowing people to make the army they want to make.

If someone here does have an issue with it, please explain. My acceptance of the system may just be out of ignorance of the woes that other factions have.

There's nothing convoluted in it, it is a very simple system which offers real choice with effective costs and gains (those who think that 3 CP is not a cost should look at how many competitive lists run more than one detachment)

Which means that no one takes Outrider / Vanguard / Spearhead, because those don't give you the CP refund. Also, a single detachment that uses an army organization scheme that everyone uses sounds an awful lot like the old FoC to me.

IIRC, The CP cost was added because players were mixing and matching different detachments with subfactions, and it got real messy real fast.
So yeah, it was convoluted in that sense, and now players are just using single detachments anyway, thereby making the other detachments pointless.

Not to mention that the old FoC just required you to take an HQ and 2 troops. Simple.
Now you have to choose between Combat Patrol (which is too small), Battalion (which requires you to field 2 HQs and three troops), Brigade (huge requirements, so you probably aren't going to use it) or pay 3 CP (lol, no). Not so simple, not that practical.

What they needed to do was tweak the old FoC to scale better for larger games or release variations of it for armies. Not introduce something that feels even more awkward.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 waefre_1 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

VladimirHerzog wrote:what are leman russes?

Amishprn86 wrote:Guard had troop tanks for a long time

I played Guard from 3rd-5th and have no idea what you guys are talking about. You never could just forgo infantry and take all Russes in that era. And only in 5th could you really mass Russes thanks to squadrons.

Yeah, you could take Armored Fist squads and have lots of Chimeras- not tanks. In 3rd and 4th if you wanted a tank skew, you had to take the Armored Company list by opponent's permission and which came with a bunch of special rules to try to offset the skew.

I don't have the relevant books in front of me, but IIRC Imperial Armor 1 introduced the Armored Battle Group list back around 3e/3.5e (and it may have been in White Dwarf before that, though I can't be certain there). If memory serves, that list allowed for Leman Russes in the Troops slot.

Yeah, armoured battle group allowed you to field an all vehicle army.
They were more of an exception rather than a rule though, normally guard do have to take infantry of some sort.

People are definitely taking Spearhead and Outrider detachments, and some factions can pretty easily fill out a Brigade.

Just because you don't like the thought of paying CP for detachments and not getting it back, doesn't mean it isn't happening. I'm pretty sure double patrol would be up there as one of the most common army compositions if you looked.

And taking different subfactions per detachment doesn't make things messy. All it takes is a small amount of sense and the ability to have a thirty second conversation before a game starts.

"These blue guys have ObSec and a 6++ against MWs, and these red guys can advance and charge and get +1" to move and advance"

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
The issue with the FOC approach is that it limits the builds an army can use. If I want to make an Ork Speed Freaks list, I must take X amount of troops and can only take a maximum of 3 units out of warbikes, deffkoptas, buggies, etc? That doesn't seem like a Speed Freaks army, it seems like a bog-standard Ork list with a handful of bikes.

Unless the FOC approach comes with options to change up the slots units take up. Like a Deffkilla Wartrike letting you take 3 buggies as troops/core/whatever or a Warboss on Bike letting you take bikers.

But then we're at the same point as the detachment scenario and we've spent all this time amending the rulebook and changed basically nothing, as I would just take an Outrider detachment and have 6 FA slots.

I don't personally see the issue with the Detachment system, or how it's a 'convoluted mess'. I think it works pretty well for allowing people to make the army they want to make.

If someone here does have an issue with it, please explain. My acceptance of the system may just be out of ignorance of the woes that other factions have.

There's nothing convoluted in it, it is a very simple system which offers real choice with effective costs and gains (those who think that 3 CP is not a cost should look at how many competitive lists run more than one detachment)

Which means that no one takes Outrider / Vanguard / Spearhead, because those don't give you the CP refund. Also, a single detachment that uses an army organization scheme that everyone uses sounds an awful lot like the old FoC to me.

IIRC, The CP cost was added because players were mixing and matching different detachments with subfactions, and it got real messy real fast.
So yeah, it was convoluted in that sense, and now players are just using single detachments anyway, thereby making the other detachments pointless.

Not to mention that the old FoC just required you to take an HQ and 2 troops. Simple.
Now you have to choose between Combat Patrol (which is too small), Battalion (which requires you to field 2 HQs and three troops), Brigade (huge requirements, so you probably aren't going to use it) or pay 3 CP (lol, no). Not so simple, not that practical.

What they needed to do was tweak the old FoC to scale better for larger games or release variations of it for armies. Not introduce something that feels even more awkward.

Or maybe you need to inform yourself instead of talking about stuff you don't know about.

If you take a look at the lists being played you will notice that indeed a single battalion is the most common type of list, but it is by no means the only one. It takes around 60% of the lists, but you see patrols, patrol+outrider, vanguard + outrider, patrol + patrol, brigades, super heavy detachments... in short, there is choice and there is a cost. And it is working well, to the point that the standard choice is common but not too common and many players opt to pay the price to gain flexibility in list construction. This is a lot more than the old FOC offered, which was no choice and no cost, play like a space marine or get out. The current detachment system has very few faction rules which interact with it (Real Space Raid and the knight ones), only in those cases were the faction acts in a really weird way. And even there, it doesn't change what those detachments do, it only alters the CP cost. This is proof that the system is working very well at representing the lists that players want to put on the battlefield.
The old FOC system had more exceptions than rules, because on its own it was a flawed system which completely prevented any sort of thematic list, which also had the problem of tying said thematic list to a named character of some kind, in a game where a lot of people HATE named characters. There was nothing good about it. I can accept those that liked templates, armor facing and so on, but FOC simply cannot be defended it has no merits of any kind.