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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Whilst I’ve no relevant in-game experience, I feel the shift in 8th Ed to “everything can now harm everything” is good reason to loosen up FOC stuff.

In 7th for instance, Imperial Knights were, aha, a nightmare, because they were immune to the majority of small arms fire, and once stuck into combat it only made things worse.

Granted into 8th and 9th the chances of massed Lasguns dropping an intact Knight are really low - but I think most of us would do a Cain and take little chance over no chance, every single time.

Likewise multiple wound weapons returning have taken the sting out of facing Nidzilla type stuff. It’s still a seemingly pokey list, but now the Nid player can’t be sure that pair of Lascannon over there simply can’t kill the untouched Carnifex. I mean the chances are reasonable, sure, but it’s just not the Certain Thing it once was.

Yes there will be not necessarily unjustified concerns that army specific FOC will be open to abuse. But I’d argue all it’s doing is changing what an FOC abusing list looks like.

But as I said, I’ve no modern, relevant experience. Please keep that in mind in responding, as I’m fully aware I may be talking utter mince! It’s proper, honest, ignorance. Not wilful ignorance.

Some of that is also Datasheet design problems. Not everything in the Nid list needed to be an Elite, as opposed to a Fast Attack or something. I'm not opposed to keeping the BRB FOC - and I'm not opposed to adding one or two (sub)Faction specific FOCs for just that army - similar to what they were doing in what? 5th? 6th? 7th? They all tend to meld together. The one that had a Ravenwing Patrol Unit of 6 bikes, an Attack Bike, and a Landspeeder. That also turned Ravenwing into troops for Ravenwing Dets and Terminators into troops for Deathwing Dets. (Sub)Faction FOC/Dets allows them to provide for the non-standard fluffy lists with bonuses and drawbacks specific to that list - they're trying to do it with Armies of Reknown but it's been pretty hit and miss - plus they rarely work for the (Sub)Faction. For example, the all phobos one SORT OF worked for Ravenguard but didn't let you take the Assault Marine type bodies that were the other half of their flavor. The AOO Det is trying to fix it while keeping all the problems of the generic approach.

Every edition I try and make a few of the same "Black Library" armies - the ones that are in the fluff (either an actual black library book, or in the fluff in the codex etc) but are wildly out of phase with the BRB FOC: The Spear of Macragge, a Double Wing DA army with the bikers as Homers for the Terminators, maybe some Wild Riders, and some Iyanden Wraith hordes. If I were doing it, I'd take that as an Army of Reknown thing - put them in the Codex and add the special rules that make it work into that AOR. You can only take Units A, B, C, D, W, X, Y, And Z. These X, Y, and Z, units count as Troops instead of Elite/FA/HS. These units can be taken as Elite AND/OR HS (Think Space Wolves Dreads).

I think every Faction should have at least two distinctly different viable lists - by distinctly different I don't mean swapping a Chap for a Cap. I mean 50 baseline Infantry models or 30 Tougher than Baseline models (changing the numbers for average PPM) - Iyanden can do Pirate Guardians, or they can do Wraithguard Guardians. Goffs could do an anvil of choppa boys, or a hammer of MANZ - or a smaller hammer and anvil of both. The point is, there should be more than one way to skin a Termagant and the AOR's either breaking or supporting/rewarding a couple fluffy lists in the codex/supplements would be a great way to do it. We've already seen they are not a way to make Reivers good.

Honestly, I think a more diverse version of the 30k Rites of War system could work. Want to do nid Monster mash? Make it so you can take multiple Tyrants, for every tyrant you can take a unit of hive-guard of troops, some of the big monsters can be made into elites or FA, etc Want armored fist? Make Vets troops when in a chimera, make Russ's fast Attack, etc.

As long as it doesn't just hand out free crap like 7th ed formations I think it can work.

7th Ed Formations biggest sin was Not Being Equally Dished Out.

Space Marines of course could take set stuff, and get all their upgrades for free. That in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing - until you compare it to other Factions, some of whom it felt “if you take all this stuff, your general can wear this rather fetching Ostrich feather, but only at a jaunty angle”.

Rites of War seem solid, and indeed they all have drawbacks to speccing in so heavily. But remember Heresy is predominantly Marine vs Marine, where barring a mere handful of units unique to a given Legion, everyone is pulling from a common pool of units. And again, most of the Rites of War are universal options.

Applying it to 40K is a different story, because you already have quite diverse forces.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
7th Ed Formations biggest sin was Not Being Equally Dished Out.

And/Or Not APPEARING to be equally dished out. Taking the double Demi Company was extremely rigid and funneled a lot of points into substandard or duplicative stuff.

Space Marines of course could take set stuff, and get all their upgrades for free. That in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing - until you compare it to other Factions, some of whom it felt “if you take all this stuff, your general can wear this rather fetching Ostrich feather, but only at a jaunty angle”.

Rites of War seem solid, and indeed they all have drawbacks to speccing in so heavily. But remember Heresy is predominantly Marine vs Marine, where barring a mere handful of units unique to a given Legion, everyone is pulling from a common pool of units. And again, most of the Rites of War are universal options.

Applying it to 40K is a different story, because you already have quite diverse forces.

No, the biggest problem with formations was that while most of them were hot garbage, a few were insanely OP, which meant that a lot of units became either effectively compulsory because they were required for the good formations (Tomb Blades), or were unjustifiable because they were restricted to trash formations (Annihilation Barges, for example).

Also, formations were an extra level of bloat which added nothing but MoAr RulEz to the game.