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I've been processing the new change to Doctrines which just puts them back to their original incarnation (and we all know how that played out before) and I thought what would be a more restrained and elegant approach that would also benefit armies that want to be in assault doctrine and get no real benefit out of how it works now. So I came up with what about having the Doctrines be a cyclic process and you choose where on the cycle you start.

So at the start of the first battle round you choose Tactical, Assault or Devastator. That Doctrine is active for the first battle round. At the start of the next battle round you can choose to stay in the same doctrine or move to the next in the cycle as follows;

Tactical>Assault
Assault>Devastator
Devastator>Tactical

In addition you cannot stay in the same doctrine for more two consecutive turns. Whichever doctrine you end on is the one that stays active for the remainder of the game.

If Super Doctrines were removed, that's fine.

If super doctrines were removed the current dataslate version would probably be fine too.

Maybe I'm weird, but I actually prefer some of the super doctrines over the normal doctrines. Normal doctrines are just extra AP. Raven Guard super doctrine feels fluffy.

That said, yeah. I'd rather get rid of doctrines entirely along with strands of fate, whatever the new necron gimmick is called, etc. Or at least, overhaul doctrines and chapter tactics so that you only have one layer of extra rules instead of 3.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Maybe I'm weird, but I actually prefer some of the super doctrines over the normal doctrines. Normal doctrines are just extra AP. Raven Guard super doctrine feels fluffy.

That said, yeah. I'd rather get rid of doctrines entirely along with strands of fate, whatever the new necron gimmick is called, etc. Or at least, overhaul doctrines and chapter tactics so that you only have one layer of extra rules instead of 3.

I mean, Raven Guard have a fluffy one, absolutely, but the rest of the Super Doctrines are just straight offensive buffs with no downside.

Why have Doctrines be cyclical? Doesn't sound fluffy and I don't see how it solves any issue. The whole point of Doctrines is representing how Space Marines wage war. Space Marines do not wage war in a cyclical manner, although it would be cool if there was a faction that did wage war in a cyclical manner like Nurgle does in Age of Sigmar.

Removing Super Doctrines does not work because then Ultramarines and Salamanders just stay in Devastator Doctrine. The only way for this to work is by forcing players to move through the Doctrines and the only place to start is with Devastator as the fluff the rule is representing.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Maybe I'm weird, but I actually prefer some of the super doctrines over the normal doctrines. Normal doctrines are just extra AP. Raven Guard super doctrine feels fluffy.

That said, yeah. I'd rather get rid of doctrines entirely along with strands of fate, whatever the new necron gimmick is called, etc. Or at least, overhaul doctrines and chapter tactics so that you only have one layer of extra rules instead of 3.

They should be bundled together with Relics. A Space Marine thunder hammer relic should not be a thunder hammer with two or three random stats improved, its rules should be inherently Space Marine-y otherwise it's not a real relic worthy of veneration.

 vict0988 wrote:
Why have Doctrines be cyclical? Doesn't sound fluffy and I don't see how it solves any issue. The whole point of Doctrines is representing how Space Marines wage war. Space Marines do not wage war in a cyclical manner, although it would be cool if there was a faction that did wage war in a cyclical manner like Nurgle does in Age of Sigmar.

Removing Super Doctrines does not work because then Ultramarines and Salamanders just stay in Devastator Doctrine. The only way for this to work is by forcing players to move through the Doctrines and the only place to start is with Devastator as the fluff the rule is representing.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Maybe I'm weird, but I actually prefer some of the super doctrines over the normal doctrines. Normal doctrines are just extra AP. Raven Guard super doctrine feels fluffy.

That said, yeah. I'd rather get rid of doctrines entirely along with strands of fate, whatever the new necron gimmick is called, etc. Or at least, overhaul doctrines and chapter tactics so that you only have one layer of extra rules instead of 3.

They should be bundled together with Relics. A Space Marine thunder hammer relic should not be a thunder hammer with two or three random stats improved, its rules should be inherently Space Marine-y otherwise it's not a real relic worthy of veneration.

I'd be pretty okay with relics also being largely removed or turned into 0-1 wargear. So many of them feel like they were just shoved in to meet a relic quota and don't really add much other than making your units even killier. At their best, I feel like relics should change the way that either your army or their wielders play rather than just being another offensive/defensive buff. And we can just pay points for the relics that are worth keeping so that they don't all have to compete for the same slots as each ot her.