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This is a subjective thing that other people possibly don't notice, don't mind - or may feel has always been the case. But here goes.
And its not about points/PL/free upgrades.

One of the problems I've had with AoS (possibly why I've never got into it) is that a lot of armies don't "feel" like armies to me.
Its hard exactly to put a finger on why - as you might say "1 leader, 3 battleline" should produce something sort of standard. But I think its because there are various ways to expand battleline - or you can take a few units of scrubs, then go all in on monsters (or characters who are effectively monsters) etc.

It kind of reminds me of Total War where you'd get armies of "all Stegadons" etc. That's not, to my mind, a force that "should" exist. Someone might think its cool - but its too one-dimensional for me.

And I feel 10th is sort of going the same way. So for example, looking at successful tournament lists, there's say Belakor+5 greater deamons and 12 flamers. Or say an Eldar list of characters (and Yncarne), 3 Fire Prisms, 2 Wraith Knights. They don't feel like organic forces that would exist. Arguably this swings down as far as "here's my 2k points army, its 3 bricks of Custodian Guard+characters" - which doesn't feel like it should be an issue, but somehow is to my mind.

As said - its extremely subjective, and unclear why "this arguably random bunch of units represents a fluffy army", while "this random bunch of units is just an optimal selection without any natural constraints". But its an issue that's been gnawing at me the last couple of weekends. I'm not a hard advocate of the FoC, and suspect a lot of these armies could be made quasi-compliant anyway (as in say AoS). But I do feel something is missing.

Anyway, what do other people think?

The problem is that you have supposedly rare units being spammed / being the only thing that is visible on the table.

I assume there would be less of a disconnect, if there was visual aid to show that your detachment of 1 Yncarne, 2 Fire Prisms, 2 Wraith Knights and 1 Farseer was just the center of attention, while there are hordes of Guardian defenders all around you, fighting in the background as NPCs. This is obviously kinda difficult to pull off on an actual table.

I strongly dislike the current approach of "take whatever you feel like" and would prefer a proper FOC. Cue the "but that punishes armies with bad troops!". There are a lot of ways how to make troops interesting, regardless of faction. GW just never bothered.

The problem, as ever, is that GW don't create a system that allows them to polish a rules system. Even if they had top rate rules writing staff, the need to throw it all out the window for a new edition every 3 years almost makes it utterly an unwinnable situation.

So the problem is every 3 years you shake things up and that means people end up with wonky collections of models that fit one theme and then don't fit another which leads to a larger and larger outcry for more open army building.


IT also lows the complexity as a barrier to entry to the game. "take what you want have fun" is a really low bar to set, even if it then breaks balance.



The old FOC did start breaking down. I recall Tyranids in 3rd,4th and beyond were starting to get a lot of units in the elite slot that were all hotly competing with each other and yet brought very different roles to the table. The FOC as it was was made for an older game with far fewer models and diversity of models.

We did go through a "ok you can take as many armies as you like in a single force" phase but that led to crazy min-max situations because each army could be a different subfaction so people would take the closecombat subfaction for their close combat units etc... which then started to lead into "you gotta use the army you are painted for" arguments and all. It was just a mess way to try and get around a FOC that didn't work as well.



I do agree, I think armies should have limits and should be armies not just a pure min-max of the best and most efficient things that can be taken spammed like crazy.

I would love to see GW take hold and put more limits in place to help craft armies for the table with a new system of organisation that's more adaptive to not only the fact that armies are more diverse now, but that some armies are going to need more "slots" of one kind than another.


It's a tricky battle to win this one, but as always with GW the biggest hurdle is overcoming the fact that even if we got it, we might not keep it for more than 3 years before its all change.



Heck AoS is a bit silly because it only has 4 organisation categories. Artillery is underused and many armies don't have anything in that slot so its functionally useless for many; meanwhile Troops covers everything from line infantry to shock to cavalry and beasts and everything that basically isn't artillery or a monster.

I certainly agree that it is leading to really strange armies taking the field and more and more skew lists that often lead to unbalanced and unfun games one way or another.

Its been coming for years now - Back in 5th we had the FOC with a max three of FA/Elite/Heavy then that grew to allow allied detachments then bigger detachments then more detachments then at the end of 9th the super detachment that basically mean take what you want.
I think the current way of actually being able to take what you want is better than the previous mish-mashes that led to more of less the same place. At least the new system has the bonus of being simple to use and implement making it very user friendly for both new players and people with varied collections.

Do I like what it produces? No.

I also play HH and really like the restrictions that are in place in that game as its uses the old style FOC and mean there are actual decisions to be made when making an army.

I'm not really sure how to fix the current problem with 40K army building - they have removed the old categories (which didn't work for lots of armies any way) making it had to implement an FOC.

The best way would likely be making battleline mandatory in some way or restricting how many of each choice you can take but I think it's likely not very workable as many factions have vastly different numbers of options to each other.

Army building and composition is just far less interesting this edition, the freedom to take everything and all upgrades being free actually has the effect of shrinking the competitive choices and options down to the few that are the best and then just spamming them.
Pretty poor unfortunatly.

a_typical_hero wrote:
The problem is that you have supposedly rare units being spammed / being the only thing that is visible on the table.

I assume there would be less of a disconnect, if there was visual aid to show that your detachment of 1 Yncarne, 2 Fire Prisms, 2 Wraith Knights and 1 Farseer was just the center of attention, while there are hordes of Guardian defenders all around you, fighting in the background as NPCs. This is obviously kinda difficult to pull off on an actual table.

I strongly dislike the current approach of "take whatever you feel like" and would prefer a proper FOC. Cue the "but that punishes armies with bad troops!". There are a lot of ways how to make troops interesting, regardless of faction. GW just never bothered.

it's a mixture of the game lacking core mechanics on the battlefield to punish organically f.e. the eldar skew above, or having mechanics that facilitiate issues like towering for knights.


Realistically, if 40k were a decently designed wargame, knights as they are would and should never work due to lack of infatry and artillery support, nvm airpower.
the FoC whilest a blunt mechanical limitation atleast forced a degree of tac side via limiting pure profile skew. But

The argument that it punishes armies with bad troops is a non argument from the beginning because the reason troops are often bad is a lack of flexibility, questionable points design and a lack of options to make the troops fit a tactic on the field. F.e. Tau firewarriors should've never been without an AT option organically in the squad...

Yeeeesssss... you have a point. Mostly, sort of.

Sigmar has the Battleline, as you say, but there are various ways to expand it, usually via your choice of general or subfaction. And I am mostly okay with that. Ironjawz are fun, but if you go Bloodtoofs, you get to field a whole army of pigs. Not over-powered (probably the opposite), but an avalanche of giant pigs has to be a sight to behold...

There are good cases to be made for taking what you like in an army. Having an all Aspect Warriors force, for example, without filling in with Guardians or having an over reliance on Dire Avengers, or going all Vanguard with a Marine army. This is all good stuff.

But you can make the argument that perhaps it requires a little self-control, and not automatically lumping things in because you think they are best

Making battleline mandatory will limit a lot of armies who had a lot of units moved previously in their old 'troops' choice out into non-battleline slots now.

I agree. We've seen the steady erosion of any kind of structure to army building. Each time it gets less restrictive it feels like the game suffers for it. Any game that allows you to take the Lion and 21 Captains as a legal army has probably gone too far in opening up restrictions.

There's a fine balance between mandating certain units and having them be a "tax" unit, but I think just deciding it's a complete free-for-all is the wrong way to do things. We've seen the consequences of these changes through GW's blanket restrictions like the rule of 3, that are a really inelegant solution to a self-inflicted problem.

The lack of guidance that no restrictions gives you probably doesn't help new players either. Previously, the Force Org Chart, or the detachment system gave you some structure to build towards for your army. Now it feels like there's no starting point and no way to frame your army builds beyond just taking the best units all the time.

the way HH does it is good, the fixed structure, a secondary "allied" fixed structure - and then the rites of war some of which allow adjustments to what goes where - at a cost of not being the "does something else" ones

as noted gave a choice

what could work better for "rare" units is they have a point cost, but it inflates for additional units

say 100 points for the first, 120 points for the second and then 140 points for the third onwards

leopard wrote:
the way HH does it is good, the fixed structure, a secondary "allied" fixed structure - and then the rites of war some of which allow adjustments to what goes where - at a cost of not being the "does something else" ones

as noted gave a choice

what could work better for "rare" units is they have a point cost, but it inflates for additional units

say 100 points for the first, 120 points for the second and then 140 points for the third onwards

There is nothing wrong with restricting or as pointed out progressivly increasing price.

restrictions lead to choices, choices are good as long as there are viable options

Maybe they should go to a 2nd edition/WHFB type restriction instead of slots.

Characters - max 50% of points
Units - At least 25% of points
Support - Up to 50% of points

Characters are self explanatory.

Support would consist of things like: vehicles (but not dedicated transports, which still have an inherent tie-in to another unit), artillery pieces like support weapons and similar, non-character big monsters (i.e. equivalent of vehicles for monster factions), fortifications, and stuff like bombardments. These would need to be defined rather than off keywords of course, as there could be some weird ones that do or don't fit in the different categories.

Units are basically everything else, which are largely infantry and mounted units at this point.

I don't know why they didn't do this, as it always looked like it did a better job at this than the FOC ever did when it was contemporary with 6th or 7th edition Fantasy.

TBF, GW also constantly allowed certain factions to basically go "screw the FOC" either by putting in options in slots that shouldn't be there. Or by allowing with formations and or troopification of certain units without real disadvantages to do so.


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leopard wrote:
restrictions lead to choices, choices are good as long as there are viable options

hence why it surprises me still that gw didn't reign in the too cheap contemptors as ancients are still an issue. but then again comapred to 40k the 7th based iteration that is HH 2.0 is positivly refreshing.

Every time I talk about how I liked the FOC, and how 8th/9th ruined it by adding in "take anything you want" FOCs, that eventually led to Arks of Omen, and now 10th, I get yelled at.

So I won't bring it up.

 Daba wrote:

Support would consist of things like: vehicles (but not dedicated transports, which still have an inherent tie-in to another unit), artillery pieces like support weapons and similar,

Would eliminate all tank armies. Not a dealbreaker, but I feel it might be a shame if they were simply not an option?

Imperial and Chaos Knights would have a problem. You can make an exception for them, but that leads to a natural question of why they are allowed and tank armies are not.

 Daba wrote:

I don't know why they didn't do this, as it always looked like it did a better job at this than the FOC ever did when it was contemporary with 6th or 7th edition Fantasy.

There are armies that would be an exception, but it would tend to lead to a requirement to buy (and paint!) larger numbers of infantry in your average army.

Ah yes, warhammer 40,000, the game where people have never fielded armies that don't meet the arbitrary standards of a whiny person regarding what a "real" army in this fictional universe should be.

One of the bigest problems is that with this route all factions are the same each unit is balanced against every other unit instead of armys being balanced against armys. Your tanks need to be equvilant (points wise) to both your super heavys and everyone else's tanks or they don't see play.

You have no special units becuse armys play the same as all units are balanced against all other units (poorly I'll admit but that's the goal so to speak) when armys should be balanced against armys.

Some armys should be infantry heavy some should be tank heavy. Dawn of war got this right. Each army felt good orks and space marines had strong infantry, Imperial guard had strong tanks, chaos had strong characters and greater demons, plus good spells. Man that game had it all. (I keep hoping for a remaster).

But all armys should still be a mix of these all these things. I would much rather be limited to one baneblade and it be a bad ass then have a army of not special baneblade.

but that isn't the case. All armies should have the same tactical options, meaning an airbranch, an infantry branch etc. therefore all armies should have the ability to deal with any threat.

That doesn't mean that they have remotly the same capability in every aspect.

What you want to avoid is what gw did with the implementation of flyers and the corrseponding issue of AA not being in other armies available.




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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Every time I talk about how I liked the FOC, and how 8th/9th ruined it by adding in "take anything you want" FOCs, that eventually led to Arks of Omen, and now 10th, I get yelled at.

So I won't bring it up.

Ro3 was a bandaid over a problem by gw's own design, it was known at the time by anyone that had more than 2 braincells.

One thing 40K has done well with that GW has never really managed to port over to AoS is the idea of niches.

AoS everything is basically kinda the same.
In 40K they've had armour values and shifts nad changes over the years which means that at times anti-tank or anti-air really was the only reliably way to deal with those threats.

Now taken too far with AA the issue was that if you didn't take AA (or couldn't) then an air dominant opponent would wipe the floor with you. However it does create lots of reasons to take different models besides their damage output.

AoS has suffered and suffers more now as most weapons are basically the same stats, because there aren't the same niches. So when you've a big diverse army, you don't really have reason to take some units over others because really all you need look at is the damage output.

Granted that's simplifying it somewhat, but the overall feel is that AoS has a super simplistic approach which means you can take anything and anything can hurt anything; but this also saps tactical niches.
40K wavers (because 3 year editions) but has generally sought to create niches which then require counters to them.

*meanwhile, in AOS*

Nearly all armies hang out between 55-45% wr, the number of times youll turn up to the game and just have no way to deal with something in your opponent's list is drastically reduced, it's never actually needed any of the various band-aids that 40k has needed like the Ro3 or insanely powerful terrain rules or slapped on army wide rules like armor of contempt. Emergency "hotfix nerfs" are rare and generally have only occurred a couple times in 3.0 when a really problematic army like Gloomspite Gitz dropped with an insane 64% wr on release.

Can we...can we get some of this suffering, actually? I'd like to have some of this suffering in 40k.

Honestly if AoS dropped the doubleturn mechanic; added a Cavalry subgroup and gave Cavalry a bit more identity/function/difference from regular troops; added some artillery models to most forces - we'd really be onto a winner!

 Overread wrote:

Granted that's simplifying it somewhat, but the overall feel is that AoS has a super simplistic approach which means you can take anything and anything can hurt anything; but this also saps tactical niches.
40K wavers (because 3 year editions) but has generally sought to create niches which then require counters to them.

More than that, the game [AOS] felt dull when I tried it because of this. A friend got me to try it out with one of my old Fantasy armies. Because of the lack of comparisons [to opposing stats], it felt like a lot of the rolling was even more unnecessary and you could really boil each unit down to more or less a single set of rolls each time they fought and I didn't feel any 'flavour' in the game.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly if AoS dropped the doubleturn mechanic; added a Cavalry subgroup and gave Cavalry a bit more identity/function/difference from regular troops; added some artillery models to most forces - we'd really be onto a winner!

On top of this, made units into blocks with facings and tactical uses of flank and rear charges which affect a combat result perhaps.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly if AoS dropped the doubleturn mechanic; added a Cavalry subgroup and gave Cavalry a bit more identity/function/difference from regular troops; added some artillery models to most forces - we'd really be onto a winner!

The double turn mechanic is so funny, it's always people that havn't played the game much that complain about it. I think its a great mechanic in the context of the game. Forces you to think ahead and not overcommit, and most armies being melee-centric means that the threat projection can simply be screened


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 Daba wrote:

On top of this, made units into blocks with facings and tactical uses of flank and rear charges which affect a combat result perhaps.

The old world is coming back for that type of gameplay

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

I think its a great mechanic in the context of the game. Forces you to think ahead and not overcommit, and most armies being melee-centric means that the threat projection can simply be screened

Preach it, Brother.

Yes, this. And add that it can be manipulated to work in your favour (the dice are rolled every round, but the results are controllable beyond the first), and overall it adds a nice dimension to the game.

Wouldn't work in 40k, of course, with the nature of ranged weaponry in the 41st millennium, but it sits nicely for Sigmar.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Ro3 was a bandaid over a problem by gw's own design, it was known at the time by anyone that had more than 2 braincells.

I didn't mention Ro3.

a_typical_hero wrote:
The problem is that you have supposedly rare units being spammed / being the only thing that is visible on the table.

I assume there would be less of a disconnect, if there was visual aid to show that your detachment of 1 Yncarne, 2 Fire Prisms, 2 Wraith Knights and 1 Farseer was just the center of attention, while there are hordes of Guardian defenders all around you, fighting in the background as NPCs. This is obviously kinda difficult to pull off on an actual table.

Yeah I think this is the issue. I'm wary on a FOC. Given the expanded rosters, I think the old system if "you can have only 3 HS choices" (etc) is too restrictive. I think people want to be able to collect and play with a big collection.

But a list which is all killer, no filler, doesn't feel organic. Even if yes, there have been plenty of such lists down the decades.

I'm not really here to complain about AoS's rules. I can imagine it is more balanced than 40k (and the double turn mechanic is potentially partly why).

But I dislike armies which are
[Character on Monster (or is a monster, same thing)]
[Second Character on/is a Monster]
[Buffbot]
[Chaff 1]
[Chaff 2]
[500 point Elite Brick]
[Monster 1]
[Monster 2]

Or variants on that sort of theme (clearly not every AoS army is like this, and some factions build quite differently).
Maybe this is just the whine of a whiny person, but these armies feel gamey/artificial to me.

This is sort of why we got the rule of 3. Not only because of power - but because you were getting armies of 10 Culexus Assassins/Tau Commanders/Hive Tyrants (etc) and GW went "oh yeah, that seems unnatural" regardless of how they performed. Clearly they weren't entirely new - Hive Tyrant Spam being borderline obligatory for 7th edition Tyranids for instance - but it seemed a bad advert for the game (and all the other models in a faction).

I'd argue a list of "Avatar+Farseer+3 Fire Prisms+2 WKs" is unnatural now. And it would still be unnatural, even if all those units were nerfed so it performed badly on the tabletop.

In the lengthy thread there was talk about how points should "shape a list." Well its that shape I have an issue with.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Ro3 was a bandaid over a problem by gw's own design, it was known at the time by anyone that had more than 2 braincells.

I didn't mention Ro3.

ties into the FoC. Because when the FoC died, more than 3 of something got available. hence Ro3 Became a necessity.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Daba wrote:

On top of this, made units into blocks with facings and tactical uses of flank and rear charges which affect a combat result perhaps.

The old world is coming back for that type of gameplay

And if you can't wait? Well, there's 8 editions of WHFB that still exist.
Grab yourself some books/pdfs & an opponent & enjoy some R&F gaming.

While the points and upgrades are more akin to AoS now, the army building structure seems to be a step towards Conquest, IMO. But, just a step.

Given that AoS doesn't have embeded characters yet, while Conquest does.

Conquest also has hard restrictions on what Units you can take in your army, based off of what Characters you have, whereas 40k is more of a Soft restriction, currently.

You can take whatever characters you want to for your FOC in 40k, but, are you taking foot heroes without units to slot them in with, that aren't Independant agents or whatever that mechanic is? I can't imagine building a list without a unit to pair my characters with, but it is something you can do. Which is why I would call it a soft restriction, and not a hard restriction like Conquest uses.

I think one of the problem with trying to add AoS style systems to w40k, is that w40k was not designed for it for ground up. Boxes, army rules, the way people build their armies exist in a AoS setting, were ment for AoS. w40k were not.
On top of that there are differences in how the "AoS style" rules are applied to some armies. And this creates resentment between the haves and have nots. But this is hardly a unique w40k thing. If w40k shoting was brought to AoS it would break the game, especialy with a double turn.