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I have preferred having freedom in my list construction, expressing my vision of a force on the battlefield. I get having constraints and restraints, but I did not enjoy the FOC introduced in 3rd Ed. In terms of Chapters, are people saying that Iron Hands cannot have fifteen bikes and riders skilled in their use? Are they saying that Ravenguard cannot muster fifteen suits of Terminator Armour and the veterans to employ them? Why couldn't a White Scars force have three Predators or three Devatator Squads? Dark Angels Scouts cannot be sneaky?

I enjoy the more open feel of Space Marine list construction in 10th. The Detachments are not all equal in terms of power, but they do represent choices by the player. Many of the enhancements and stratagems only work of certain units which does impose some limits. There are some likely unintended choices such as Centurians being the key feature of competitive Vanguard Spearhead lists, but players are going to play.

A player who likes Imperial Fists can still have some fun with a Phobos/Scout heavy list if they so choose and not be punished for fit. A White Scars player can have three tanks and not be at a disadvantage.

So while I am not thrilled with the power of my new Dark Angels Codex, I would hardly say that the game is heavily sanitized for me. I can choose from ten detachments, each with their own style.

I certainly see some gatekeeping in some of the posts above.

Not that this is indicitive of anything relevant to a reasonable conclusion, but wasn't 9th the best selling edition in 40k history?

Again, not drawing a conclusion/judgement of the edition here, but saying it wasn't popular, or well liked, is....wrong.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Not that this is indicitive of anything relevant to a reasonable conclusion, but wasn't 9th the best selling edition in 40k history?

Again, not drawing a conclusion/judgement of the edition here, but saying it wasn't popular, or well liked, is....wrong.

Purely anecdotal personal experience? I bought books for it, but I played less of it than any other edition since I started because the amount of bookkeeping and stratagem juggling ended up being more stressful than fun.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Imperial Fists had "Death before dishonour", not "Have pride in your colours" in the 4th ed book. They have never had restrictions on using scouts or infiltrate, being mostly a good codex Chapter. Plus, infiltration is an important siege strategy.

Who am I thinking of? I don't have the book anymore, that trait just always stuck out to me.

I should note that I didn't say they should not have Scouts. Just that they shouldn't be sneaky.


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Breton wrote:

Space Marines themselves had their subfactions (DA/BA/SW) split out earlier than others yes, and had some (BT/RG/etc) continue to be split off.

RG, etc haven't ever been split out. That's the problem which exists. We have more RG themed stuff smattered in Space Wolves and Deathwatch than we do in the main codex.

Yes they were, there was a point where all the loyalist first founding had a Chapter Specific Supplement to partner with the generic SM Codex. Thus why I pointed out "and had some continue to be split off" and nor part of "earlier" But that doesn't really matter. All in one book, or each in a supplement the point is the way to do it is somewhat generalized "twists" on the theme (like Chapter Tactics were tho some probably would need reworking) combined with one of the new Detachments (which should probably be refined a rebalanced now that the players can demonstrate short comings).

Some, like Orks, had their subfactions mixed from the beginning in such a way that trying to force them through the Chapter Tactics Template doesn't work. They likely need a different template.

It's actually why I'm leaning towards special characters having detachment locks as a viable solution. For Marines? It's the easiest and most effective way to manage things.

I'm against that - not enough special characters, and you shouldn't have to take Eldrad to take an Ulthwe psyker heavy army. I'd do it based on HQ's probably but I'd do it to the generic archetype (i.e. Jump Pack Captain, Terminator Chaplain, etc). Which means the generic archetypes need to be filled out - but they already should be.

Breton wrote:
Yes they were, there was a point where all the loyalist first founding had a Chapter Specific Supplement to partner with the generic SM Codex. Thus why I pointed out "and had some continue to be split off" and nor part of "earlier" But that doesn't really matter. All in one book, or each in a supplement the point is the way to do it is somewhat generalized "twists" on the theme (like Chapter Tactics were tho some probably would need reworking) combined with one of the new Detachments (which should probably be refined a rebalanced now that the players can demonstrate short comings).

Oh no, it absolutely does matter. You're conflating the supplements that did nothing but add stratagems, wargear, and a character with the full-on things like the Space Wolves.

I'm against that - not enough special characters, and you shouldn't have to take Eldrad to take an Ulthwe psyker heavy army. I'd do it based on HQ's probably but I'd do it to the generic archetype (i.e. Jump Pack Captain, Terminator Chaplain, etc). Which means the generic archetypes need to be filled out - but they already should be.

You're misunderstanding the suggestion. To use Eldrad as an example?
Eldrad doesn't make it so the Ulthwe Psyker heavy army happens.
The Ulthwe Psyker heavy army makes Eldrad happen.

 catbarf wrote:
let's look at a few examples that are actually in the rules.

Okay, and then I'll chime in with comparisons from 9th, and then we'll talk about Flanderization again. Sound good?

 catbarf wrote:

Imperial Fists- their advantage is Suffer Not The Works of Heretics, which lets you purchase the Tank Hunters skill for Tacs or Devs at 3pts per model. Their disadvantage is Death before Dishonor, which lets your opponent force the game to go an extra turn on a 4+. So your advantage is an optional ability that, if you choose to use, you have to pay points for, and your downside is stubborn pride.

Here's 9th:

Bespoke Chapter Tactic:
- light cover has no effect against this factions ranged attacks
- Bolt weapons score on extra hit on a hit roll of 6

Bespoke WL Trait:
- friendly units within 6 inches and within cover are unaffected by -1AP
- if you don't take this, your WL can take any generic SM Trait

Huh: Your preferred rules affect only two units in the army, mine affect them all. Yours are optional, but you get AN ACTUAL punishment (as opposed to just "no bonus") whether you choose to max out troops and devs or not. My rules HAVE a bespoke WL Trait, but you can take a generic one if you don't like it.

SO whose preference is more Flanderized?

 catbarf wrote:

Or Crimson Fists. They can spend 1pt/model to get Preferred Enemy against Orks, but they always get 1 less (each) Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support slots. Not an amazingly powerful ability, but you can always use the vanilla codex if you're not fighting Orks.

Here's 9th:

Bespoke Chapter tactic:
- +1 to hit vs. units that outnumber the shooting unit by 5+ (all vehicles count as 5)
- bolt weapons score an extra hit on a hit roll of 6

Bespoke WL Trait:
- the first time your WL is destroyed, you can forego all other resurrection rules to get a chance to come back with D3 wounds on a roll of 4+
- if you don't take this, your WL can take any generic SM Trait

Okay- bonus applies to all units, so both are equally flanderized on that point. But your preferred ability is WAY weaker DESPITE having a cost, and so specific, you could argue it's more flanderizing than mine AND it comes with an ACTUAL PENALTY (as opposed to merely "no bonus") which is always on, whether you take any Ork Hunters or not?

So who's more flanderized?

And before we move on, what makes "Just use the vanilla marines if you don't like the bonus" any more valid than Aphyon's statement that "If you don't like the box your subfaction puts you in, then pick a different subfaction with box you like better?" And why is it less "Changing your faction to fit flavour of the month meta" than when somebody says "My White Marines are going to count as BA for this game, because the White Scars rules won't give me an advantage in this match?"

 catbarf wrote:

Or White Scars. Wow, they get multiple benefits- they can take Bikes as Elites but must buy a Veteran skill at 3ppm, or take them as Troops but they must be 5+ per unit, and all Bikes must buy Expert Riders for 2ppm. Their infantry can also choose to take Counter-Attack and True Grit for 3ppm. As their downside they can only take 0-1 Land Raiders, Predator Destructors, Whirlwinds, or Vindicators, can't use Land Raider Crusaders or Predator Annihilators at all, and transport vehicles take up Fast Attack slots.

Here's 9th:

Bespoke Chapter Tactic:
- your units can charge even if they advanced or fell back
- no hit penalty for Assault weapons if you advance

Bespoke WL Trait:
- after a charge, this WL scores a mortal wound against a single unit within 1" on a 2+
- any generic SM WL trait is available if you don't like this one

Clearly we can see your preference is WAY more Flanderized than mine, and wow, look at that always always on penalty. Seriously, how did you even keep a straight face while typing that "not getting a bonus" is a devastating disadvantage that locks you into a monobuild while praising this ridiculous ALWAYS ON, ACTUAL DISADVANTAGE?

 catbarf wrote:

Do you see the theme here?

Do you?

Because all 3 of the things you presented are a) more flanderizing b) less balanced and c) objectively more disadvantaged than any of the ones I presented?

 catbarf wrote:

but it was a system with more flavorful subfaction differentiation

I don't actually disagree with this. Because the White Scars rules you present, though objectively more flanderizing than the 9th equivalent by both providing bonuses only to certain units, and mandatory exclusion of other units, does feel flavourful because you can see it on the table. The 9th alternative is actually MORE in keeping with the fluff because it just makes the whole army faster and more mobile, but you only notice when you actually play, not when you look at the army.

 catbarf wrote:

where taking an army that didn't neatly fit into a particular archetype didn't put you at a disadvantage

But you're losing me on this. I understand relativism: a player that chooses not to maximize their army according to it's strengths is always at a relative disadvantage against an army that does, even when no actual penalty rule is assigned. But an actual penalty rule that is active whether or not you choose to maximize is objectively more of a disadvantage than any relative "penalty" you might suffer by being denied a bonus if you choose not to maximize.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

most special characters should be builds made with generic character rules, but also they should basically not be "special characters" at that point; just generic characters with canon background and a bespoke model.

For me, this is where Crusade comes in- it is the build your own character machine of 40k. And what's great about it is that it doesn't FORBID named characters; it just recognizes that the extra rules they come with represent skills and wargear accumulated as a result of battle experience, and as such, they have already grown into the Heroes and Legends that generic leaders can become by earning that experience in game.

So essentially, used named characters if you like them, but they aren't going to grow any more than they already have. If you choose to field generic characters, you get to build your own, you just have to earn those extra traits by fighting.

 JNAProductions wrote:
9th Edition wasn't exactly a bastion of interesting rules either.

It is compared to 10th. But realistically its just another example of GW responding with wildly extreme swings rather than an incremental mid zone.

The ideal would be - I suspect - a minor thematic "Chapter Tactics" style buff with at least a couple different templates for the rule depending on the fluff of the Top Faction. SM Chapter Tactics don't work for a congealed mass of Ork Infantry where Deathskull Lootas and Evil Sunz buggies all working under the leadership of a Goff Boss. They'd need a different template than some sort of Subfaction Purity test probably based on the Warlord Choice filtering down into a popularity=power thing similar to what you see in the HH novels where all the First Captains/Chapter Masters/Dark Apostles/Pick your Fluff Word vying for the approval of their Legion Primarch through their personal strengths. Erberus converting primarchs with the super magic knife, Phaeron summoning Daemons, etc.

Each "Chapter Tactic" (whether a Chapter Tactic or Sept Protocol or Hive Fleet etc) should be roughly equivalent, and thematic, any Chapter/Sept/etc specific units should synergize well with their respective tactic Each Detachment should have some wiggle rules to make their theme preferred in the Det - Generic OC bonus to Terminators and assorted -Guard Veterans (Blade, Stern, Van) Something like the First Company Det having an addon to AOC for Units with an invuln (Terminators, BGV) to to give them a FNP - then something to the Stormlance Det that gives you a "Before Your First Turn" you can bring on a special Det-Required "Outflank Reinforcements which can only include mounted and embarked TRANSPORTS type units that can come on from any non-opponent board edge. And the usual "these are just examples for theme, not for game power examples" rules apply.

The Detachments should be modifiers to the unit types to make the Detachment work (for example) instead of Black Knights getting a 5++ - all MOUNTED and SPEEDER units should have gotten a 5++ to give it to all the Ravenwing - the Inner Circle Det should have given all VETERAN INFANTRY (this would have required giving all the Stern/Blade/Van Guard Veteran Squads and all the Terminator Squads the VETERAN keyword) +1 OC (Bikes are already OC2 so the RG Det didn't need it) The keyword system is immensely powerful here, but GW is drastically underusing it to provide these thematic nudges.

I'd do three things:

Lean Hard into Keywords to framework the following:

Bring back and modify Chapter Tactics, and a small handful of Chapter Strats that are fluffy and equivalent to all the other CHAPTER/HIVE/etc abilities.

Bring back and modify the Det System from 6th? 7th? The one that started out with the Captain Demi Company + Chaplain Demi Company = free transports. That was way too potent, but combining that template with keywords is such a no brainer. This Detachment does A to Keyword 1, B to Keyword 2, yadda yadda. In such a way that an All Terminator army representing the First Company gets modified to be a viable army removing the often double dipped drawbacks to those units in a more standard 3, 6, 3+, 3, 3, HQ, Elites, Troop, Assault, Heavy Support formula Dets. For example as above giving expensive VETERANS a +1OC as they're now the TROOPS not the ELITES supporting the TROOPS and still really expensive.


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JNAProductions wrote:I'll repeat a point I've made before-the majority of named characters should just be certain builds that you make from generic characters.

Calgar might be a unique individual, but Chapter Master with Twin Power Fists shouldn't be locked to Ultras exclusively.

Calgar's particular power fists should be unique, but I absolutely agree everyone should be able to make a Captain/Lieutenant in Gravis Armor with two Flamer fists or two Bolt Fists + Grenade Harness. I think instead of making more blister characters, they should just make a Chapter Upgrade Sprue. You buy the Armor Base mini/kit - Aggressor, Sternguard, Vanguard, Outrider, and add a couple bits from the Chapter Sprue to create a generic Captain/Lieutenant/Libby/Chaplain - For example the next Talonmaster is an Outrider mini with a special Ravenwing winged helmet, and an one of two-ish arms - with a Ravenwing/Power Sword, or a Thunderhammer/Powerfist etc - and you have that extra body because the Ravenwing Assault Squadron is back with 5 Outriders, 1 ATV and a 3 crew Storm Speeder (which makes 10) with an extra Outrider body for the talon master. Turning the rest of the 3 or 3-6 units into 5 or 5-10 will also end up with extra bodies for conversion into characters.

So yes, any chapter should be able to make a Captain out of an Aggressor but they should have regular Power fists and Aggressor guns, not the super fists and guns of the Gauntlets of Macragge, just like Ultramarine players shouldn't be able to make a Terminator Captain with a Super Thunderhammer, or a magic AOE 4++ unkillable token.

This is what I don't understand about these people so fixated on White Scars; In 9th your faction trait said NOTHING about Bikes. They had:

Charge even if you fell back or advanced

No penalty to shooting assault weapons when you advance

ONE of their six warlord traits requires a bike, for a Chapter that IS heavily about bikes.

Now we have the Stormlance Task Force which has 2 out of 4 enhancements that require "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units which there are a grand total of three in the codex. 3 out of 6 stratagems mention "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units.

So is this all really just because you don't like having the "White Scars" name attached to the army rules?

Plus this all just completely ignores the fact that we are not just talking about Space Marines. I really liked that Hive Fleet Gorgon gave me the ability to play an army of hyper-toxic Tyranids that focused on poison with rules that reflected that. Now I don't have anything even remotely close to that.

For me, this is where Crusade comes in- it is the build your own character machine of 40k. And what's great about it is that it doesn't FORBID named characters; it just recognizes that the extra rules they come with represent skills and wargear accumulated as a result of battle experience, and as such, they have already grown into the Heroes and Legends that generic leaders can become by earning that experience in game.

So essentially, used named characters if you like them, but they aren't going to grow any more than they already have. If you choose to field generic characters, you get to build your own, you just have to earn those extra traits by fighting.

I like Crusade a lot and agree that it's a good way to add more personality to a generic character. However, I feels that's kind of parallel to my point and the point I was responding to because not all games will be crusade games. Frankly, if a named character is just a +1 version of a generic character or a generic character with a slightly different piece of wargear (that could harmlessly be made a generic option), it's probably best to just expand the options of the generic datasheet rather than adding extra datasheets to the game. And at that point, a lot of the named characters that are just generics+1 (see: most marine beatsticks) probably don't need to be their own datasheets in matched play.

Not that I'm particularly bothered by Calgar or Grimnars' datasheets existing, mind you; they just feel unnecessary.

Bring back and modify the Det System from 6th? 7th? The one that started out with the Captain Demi Company + Chaplain Demi Company = free transports. That was way too potent, but combining that template with keywords is such a no brainer. This Detachment does A to Keyword 1, B to Keyword 2, yadda yadda. In such a way that an All Terminator army representing the First Company gets modified to be a viable army removing the often double dipped drawbacks to those units in a more standard 3, 6, 3+, 3, 3, HQ, Elites, Troop, Assault, Heavy Support formula Dets. For example as above giving expensive VETERANS a +1OC as they're now the TROOPS not the ELITES supporting the TROOPS and still really expensive.

Idk, man. That kind of just sounds like removing the rule of 3 with extra steps. I think I'd just prefer a more thorough, Rites of War-esque set of rules for each detachment that spells out how an army using those RoW differs from the norm.

So instead of bringing back formations or mutated versions of the CAD (with all its problems), you can just be like:

"First Company Detachment:
* Take all the termie squads you want.
* If you use this detachment, your army must include Unit X and do such and such during deployment.
* Units with keyword Y or Z in this detachment have unlocked the First Company Special Mechanic (FCSM). Here's how that works. It changes how units with Keyword Y and Z behave in a different-but-equally-powerful way to the norm."

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Five of these are just force org jumbling, whch is irrelevant now. You want an all bike army then go for it. You don't need to pick into it.

Except for that Rule of Three, so take as many bikes as you want except limit it to exactly three squads. As opposed to the 4th ed where you could take twelve Bike Squads with the Chapter Trait unlock.

The rest are upgrades to units...

...which are available in spades and in far greater variety than 4th ever offered on top of having a tactical consideration of their use and strategic consideration of their deployment.

AFAIK Outriders have no upgrades available as a unit, as opposed to the old Bike entry which allowed Specials as upgrades. Every bike could take Meltabombs too actually. The Sergeant in fact could get Terminator Honors, and unlock the character wargear list which included all sorts of stuff. And then of course the Elite unlock for Tank Hunters and Furious Assault, as well as the previously mentioned Skilled Riders.

Not to mention the fact that any independent character could ride a Bike, so your bike army could be led by Captains, Librarians, Chaplains and Techmarines on Bikes.

As a bonus, you could actually get each Bike squad to the traditional Codex ten-man allotment. 8 on bikes and two on the Attack Bike, making it possible to run the entire 8th company on Bikes.

So i dunno . . . @Daedelus?

I get that the ATV is an ugly ass model, but it exists.

Tank Hunters which is reroll hits vs vehicles is available in Oath. Otherwise a chaplain on bike grants DW to shooting attacks.

Furious Assault is +1S on charge, but again the chaplain gives +1 to wound in melee.

At some point GW will make more marine models on bikes ( but not all ).

An ATV gives reprisal shots. Stromlance can give advance and fallback, fallback and shoot, reserves on turn 1, the ability to move react when someone comes within 9", a 9" advance, a -1 to hit and wound, and SH.

Tank hunters, furious assault, and characters on bikes that just carry wargear and give you better LD or fearless isn't any more compelling to me and may well be less so when playing the game and not just list building. Ymmv.

What ways does a techmarine on a bike make the game more interesting? Would it make the battle reports Argive is watching more dynamic?

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
This is what I don't understand about these people so fixated on White Scars; In 9th your faction trait said NOTHING about Bikes.

At least in my case, I've been using WS as short-hand for "an army with an obviously distinctive playstyle/tendency to field a specific subset of non-standard units en masse." I'm not really trying to talk about WS specifically. Although I'm fairly sure a lot of the WS stratagems were bike-centric?

So is this all really just because you don't like having the "White Scars" name attached to the army rules?

Yes. Whether you like the style of rules/specific benefits subfactions gave in 9th over the specific benefits detachments give in 10th is a whole other conversation. My main point has been that the playstyle best represented by subfaction X's rules should be available to all armies using that codex; not only to armies with a certain paint scheme/gene daddy.

Plus this all just completely ignores the fact that we are not just talking about Space Marines. I really liked that Hive Fleet Gorgon gave me the ability to play an army of hyper-toxic Tyranids that focused on poison with rules that reflected that. Now I don't have anything even remotely close to that.

Excellent example. Your complaint here isn't that there's no "Gorgon Detachment;" it's that there's no detachment that happens to hand out buffs that let you represent an army of hyper-toxic bugs. Which is a fair complaint, but not something that is inherently problematic with detachments being subfaction agnostic. If there was a "Hypertoxic Detachment" that made no direct reference to your bugs literally belonging to Gorgon, you'd probably be fine with that, right?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Not that this is indicitive of anything relevant to a reasonable conclusion, but wasn't 9th the best selling edition in 40k history?

Again, not drawing a conclusion/judgement of the edition here, but saying it wasn't popular, or well liked, is....wrong.

Last I checked the number of games played in BCP is up 20% this January over last year. I don't have other months loaded so not terribly conclusive yet. ( not including online games, but there could be other junk in there too )

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
This is what I don't understand about these people so fixated on White Scars; In 9th your faction trait said NOTHING about Bikes. They had:

Charge even if you fell back or advanced

No penalty to shooting assault weapons when you advance

ONE of their six warlord traits requires a bike, for a Chapter that IS heavily about bikes.

Now we have the Stormlance Task Force which has 2 out of 4 enhancements that require "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units which there are a grand total of three in the codex. 3 out of 6 stratagems mention "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units.

So is this all really just because you don't like having the "White Scars" name attached to the army rules?

Plus this all just completely ignores the fact that we are not just talking about Space Marines. I really liked that Hive Fleet Gorgon gave me the ability to play an army of hyper-toxic Tyranids that focused on poison with rules that reflected that. Now I don't have anything even remotely close to that.

"Fall back and Charge" is very Bike-ish. That's probably the current evolution of their bike rules. Also don't fall into the monolithic trap here - All of the Chapters had at least a couple of "iconic units" BA were about Jump Packs, but they also tied in Terminators, Speeders and Dreads to some degree depending on edition. Wolves were (originally) Terminators/Dreads/Bikes. RG are Jumps and Scouts. Scars were Bikes and Mechanized Infantry - squads in vehicles that frequently outflanked.They're loosely based on the Mongols of history so their thing was mobility/surrounding. DA were loosely based on Teutonic Knights so you've got heavily armored medieval armed stuff - Deathwing Knights, Mounted Swordsmen/pick hammers like Black Knights. One of the main things screwing White Scars is the end of the Bike Squad and Bike mounted characters. Kor'sarro Khan crossed the rubicon and forgot how to ride a bike at about the same time all Captains forgot how to ride a bike. Libbys forgot a long time ago. Part of bringing back the assorted flavor "detachments" will require restoring a lot of the non-standard HQ's.


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 Wyldhunt wrote:

Yes. Whether you like the style of rules/specific benefits subfactions gave in 9th over the specific benefits detachments give in 10th is a whole other conversation. My main point has been that the playstyle best represented by subfaction X's rules should be available to all armies using that codex; not only to armies with a certain paint scheme/gene daddy.

I'm 50/50 on this. The generic playstyle at the Det Level (Biker List, Jumper List, Termie List, etc) where its not the standard 30 Tacs, 10 Assaults, 10 Devs and a toy or two - but is thematically different should absolutely be available to each chapter. The Fortifications knowledge of the Imperial Fists, or the Vows of the Black Templar should not be available to the sons of Sanguinius or Guilliman.

In otherwords, Everyone should be able to make a list with 100 Terminators in their full First Company (and not need 60 Tacticals for troops units etc), not just the progengy of the Lion. But the gene-father SHOULD change how that group plays. The sons of the Lion might be a more 50/50 mix of shooters and fighters because they're more stoic and have Terminator sized Plasma Cannon from their First Legion armories - while the Sons of Russ are equally at home in Terminator Armor their aggression may swing the balance from 50/50 to favoring the Terminator Assault Weapons 25/75 or something to represent their more aggressive nature making them better at striding into a melee, even in the slower Terminator Armor. While yet a third example of the of the implacable Imperial Fists might skew 75/25 in favor of their shooters given the progeny of Dorn are more known for the ranks upon ranks of armored marines inexorably clomping ahead with their storm bolters on a mission to destroy the lascannon turrets for their less armored brethren.

It was wrong that only Dark Angels armies led by Belial could make an all Terminator force. Its equally wrong to make an all terminator force of the sons of Russ into a walking wall of Storm Bolters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breton wrote:
Yes they were, there was a point where all the loyalist first founding had a Chapter Specific Supplement to partner with the generic SM Codex. Thus why I pointed out "and had some continue to be split off" and nor part of "earlier" But that doesn't really matter. All in one book, or each in a supplement the point is the way to do it is somewhat generalized "twists" on the theme (like Chapter Tactics were tho some probably would need reworking) combined with one of the new Detachments (which should probably be refined a rebalanced now that the players can demonstrate short comings).

Oh no, it absolutely does matter. You're conflating the supplements that did nothing but add stratagems, wargear, and a character with the full-on things like the Space Wolves.

Well first off you're confusinging what part didn't matter. It doesn't matter if the flavor comes from a new book, or a dedicated section of the main book. Separate flavor rules differentiating between UM and RG are separate flavor rules.
Second, doing "nothing" like adding SEPARATE chapter specific rules like warlord traits, wargear, and character(s) is pretty much the definition of separation. Your complaint isn't the act, its the quantity. RG were a separate and distinct chapter with their own rules.

I'm against that - not enough special characters, and you shouldn't have to take Eldrad to take an Ulthwe psyker heavy army. I'd do it based on HQ's probably but I'd do it to the generic archetype (i.e. Jump Pack Captain, Terminator Chaplain, etc). Which means the generic archetypes need to be filled out - but they already should be.

You're misunderstanding the suggestion. To use Eldrad as an example?
Eldrad doesn't make it so the Ulthwe Psyker heavy army happens.
The Ulthwe Psyker heavy army makes Eldrad happen.

You may want to backtrack to the post I was replying to - the idea was that paradigm shift armies were tied to special characters. That literally means that if you wanted to run an X specific army, they were expecting to you to take Special Character X to unlock the army/rules.

I'm 50/50 on this. The generic playstyle at the Det Level (Biker List, Jumper List, Termie List, etc) where its not the standard 30 Tacs, 10 Assaults, 10 Devs and a toy or two - but is thematically different should absolutely be available to each chapter. The Fortifications knowledge of the Imperial Fists, or the Vows of the Black Templar should not be available to the sons of Sanguinius or Guilliman.

In otherwords, Everyone should be able to make a list with 100 Terminators in their full First Company (and not need 60 Tacticals for troops units etc), not just the progengy of the Lion. But the gene-father SHOULD change how that group plays. The sons of the Lion might be a more 50/50 mix of shooters and fighters because they're more stoic and have Terminator sized Plasma Cannon from their First Legion armories - while the Sons of Russ are equally at home in Terminator Armor their aggression may swing the balance from 50/50 to favoring the Terminator Assault Weapons 25/75 or something to represent their more aggressive nature making them better at striding into a melee, even in the slower Terminator Armor. While yet a third example of the of the implacable Imperial Fists might skew 75/25 in favor of their shooters given the progeny of Dorn are more known for the ranks upon ranks of armored marines inexorably clomping ahead with their storm bolters on a mission to destroy the lascannon turrets for their less armored brethren.

It was wrong that only Dark Angels armies led by Belial could make an all Terminator force. Its equally wrong to make an all terminator force of the sons of Russ into a walking wall of Storm Bolters.

I get where you're coming from here. However, I feel like that level of distinction might not be a feasible ask. At that point, you're talking about every supported army archetype having 9+ variations. So if there are 6(?) supported archetypes that are each modified in 9 chapter-specific, slight-different, equally-viable ways, that's functionally 54 different sets of detachment rules.

I also, and I mean this with no disrespect to your or marine players intended, feel that it might be a bit of "marine privelege" that makes that level of distinction seem necessary. Speaking as a primarily eldar player, I mostly just want a handful of detachments that support the main archetypes (plus, selfishly, my own minor canon craftworld's thing for banshees.) So while I do want rules that support a biker/skimmer-heavy Saim-Hann style detachment, I don't feel compelled to have slightly different rules for a bunch of Ulthwe/Saim-Hann/Iyanden/Alaitoc/Biel-Tan/Iybraesil/Altansar biker detachments.

I'd rather just have a well-written rules for a handful of archetypes rather than needing each color scheme to feel extra special, you know? Let an Iyanden ghost army and an Ulthwe ghost army both use the same rules.

PenitentJake wrote:
SO whose preference is more Flanderized?

Neither, because you clearly have no idea what I'm talking about and seem to interpret 'flanderized' as 'things that only apply to some units', which isn't remotely correct.

Go back and re-read my previous posts, understand what's different between free-across-your-entire-army and paid-with-points bonuses, understand how bonuses that push certain archetypes by giving them benefits at no attendant disadvantage encourage flanderized depictions of a subfaction, and then we can have a conversation. I'm not going to go line-by-line on comparisons that fundamentally miss the point.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Five of these are just force org jumbling, whch is irrelevant now. You want an all bike army then go for it. You don't need to pick into it.

Except for that Rule of Three, so take as many bikes as you want except limit it to exactly three squads. As opposed to the 4th ed where you could take twelve Bike Squads with the Chapter Trait unlock.

The rest are upgrades to units...

...which are available in spades and in far greater variety than 4th ever offered on top of having a tactical consideration of their use and strategic consideration of their deployment.

AFAIK Outriders have no upgrades available as a unit, as opposed to the old Bike entry which allowed Specials as upgrades. Every bike could take Meltabombs too actually. The Sergeant in fact could get Terminator Honors, and unlock the character wargear list which included all sorts of stuff. And then of course the Elite unlock for Tank Hunters and Furious Assault, as well as the previously mentioned Skilled Riders.

Not to mention the fact that any independent character could ride a Bike, so your bike army could be led by Captains, Librarians, Chaplains and Techmarines on Bikes.

As a bonus, you could actually get each Bike squad to the traditional Codex ten-man allotment. 8 on bikes and two on the Attack Bike, making it possible to run the entire 8th company on Bikes.

So i dunno . . . @Daedelus?

I get that the ATV is an ugly ass model, but it exists.

Tank Hunters which is reroll hits vs vehicles is available in Oath. Otherwise a chaplain on bike grants DW to shooting attacks.

Furious Assault is +1S on charge, but again the chaplain gives +1 to wound in melee.

At some point GW will make more marine models on bikes ( but not all ).

An ATV gives reprisal shots. Stromlance can give advance and fallback, fallback and shoot, reserves on turn 1, the ability to move react when someone comes within 9", a 9" advance, a -1 to hit and wound, and SH.

Tank hunters, furious assault, and characters on bikes that just carry wargear and give you better LD or fearless isn't any more compelling to me and may well be less so when playing the game and not just list building. Ymmv.

What ways does a techmarine on a bike make the game more interesting? Would it make the battle reports Argive is watching more dynamic?

Yeah, I'll take the 4th ed options where
1: I can build an entire army mounted on bike models
2: Has the wargear options available to customize units for roles as I see fit
3: Forgoes hidden, bespoke special rules that are invisible to my opponent, in favor of USRs known by all.
4: Characters can join and leave squads as they see fit.

For just pure eyeballs, one can be an entirely mounted bike army, plain as day, with options modeled, visible and paraded with pride. The other can bring no more bikes than any standard Space Marine army, appearing no different than any other Space Marine army that happens to have the same units, but somehow behaves differently without telegraphing any of that information.

"Sanitized" is an excellent word for the second option.

Why pick on the Techmarine? Give him a Servo-Harness and a Bike and attach him to a unit and add extra firepower, or ride around and smash things with his Servo-Harness Attacks. Or repair any vehicles that you bring along, but keep him on a bike to stick with the theme. Just an option to make a cool model if you want it.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'd rather just have a well-written rules for a handful of archetypes rather than needing each color scheme to feel extra special, you know? Let an Iyanden ghost army and an Ulthwe ghost army both use the same rules.

To add on to this, I'd be perfectly fine with Iyanden and Ulthwe both being able to take ghost armies but also both having a unique stratagem or upgrade or ability or whatever so that they still feel a little different from one another. The problem is more when each build archetype has only one acceptable subfaction to represent it; if an Ulthwe ghost army is just straight-up worse than an Iyanden one, with absolutely no redeeming features, that isn't good design.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I get where you're coming from here. However, I feel like that level of distinction might not be a feasible ask. At that point, you're talking about every supported army archetype having 9+ variations. So if there are 6(?) supported archetypes that are each modified in 9 chapter-specific, slight-different, equally-viable ways, that's functionally 54 different sets of detachment rules.

I don't think its an unreasonable ask, its not that difficult. A Chapter Tactic for each subfaction of each main faction, and a handful of detachments is still fairly basic. Sure it runs out to 54, but they don't have to manually create each one. They have to create 9 things and 6 things that work together but don't require each other.

I also, and I mean this with no disrespect to your or marine players intended, feel that it might be a bit of "marine privelege"

You mean even though I've taken pains to specifically and repeatedly include all the factions by calling out Hive Fleets, Klans, and Septs and so on. Sounds like more sour grapes on your part than supported arguement.

that makes that level of distinction seem necessary. Speaking as a primarily eldar player, I mostly just want a handful of detachments that support the main archetypes (plus, selfishly, my own minor canon craftworld's thing for banshees.) So while I do want rules that support a biker/skimmer-heavy Saim-Hann style detachment, I don't feel compelled to have slightly different rules for a bunch of Ulthwe/Saim-Hann/Iyanden/Alaitoc/Biel-Tan/Iybraesil/Altansar biker detachments.

I do. I want a generic Iyanden Craftword Trait like the AP reduction from 9th - something generic that doesn't specifically call out guardians and wraith - that can then interact with a handful of detachments in such a way that Iyanden units might play the same Det in a different way.

I'd rather just have a well-written rules for a handful of archetypes rather than needing each color scheme to feel extra special, you know? Let an Iyanden ghost army and an Ulthwe ghost army both use the same rules.

And I'd rather the stoicism of Iyanden make their Wraiths more resistant, while the Alaitoc Wraiths are more hidden.

So you loved 9th then? ( like honestly, because I'm unsure - it's hard to know where people are coming from with multipleideas swirling around

I hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand burning stars. the only NU-40K i will use is index era 8th ed because we use it to play epic. we just halve all movement and ranges.

The FLGS oldhammer group i started uses core 5th ed with a few rules swapped out for their 4th ed counterpart that fit better with the game-
IE wound allocation, assaulting vehicles and sniper rifles. we allso added in snap fire, overwatch, and grenade throwing from 7th because they add a lot to the feel of the game in 5th.

we use whichever codex we feel best fits the lore of the army. but it must operate under 5th ed core rules and USRs. needless to say the vast majority of codexes come from 3rd and 4th with a few from 5th and occasionally 7th especially for factions that did not exist before that edition.

this is just my personal collection i keep with me on game night for anybody to use as needed.(not including chapter approved, every index astartes and forgeworld imperial armor book that i also have at home). as i consider them the best of the codexes GW has ever made for each faction.




Anything else other players usually have in their collections as needed.-demons, knights, custodes etc....

I can agree that those are some of the best codexs that I can think of; what a spread.

Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:

9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines

The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats


Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power

Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.

Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat

Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.

So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
The Emperor's Champion got updated rules in Chapter Approved (easiest to find in Chapter Approved: 2003) where it could be taken by any Chapter, although had to be taken by Black Templars. See the text at the top:

I stand corrected.

Well, it is a niche option from a ruleset that went out of support twenty years ago. Easy to miss

There was an interesting point brought up above, about White Scars. SHOULD they be "all about bikes"? IIRC the Scars doctrine was lightning assaults, not "Mongolian space biker gang".

In fact, the original "Fat Bloke 'bullied' the staff into making him White Scars rules" from White Dwarf 230 (Feb 1999 when the original Chaos codex came out for 3rd edition) specifically says that "White Scars excel at hit-and-run attacks and are renown for their speed" and shows this as a special army list made for the battle report (keep in mind this is 3rd edition so many units from later wouldn't exist):

Wayniac wrote:There was an interesting point brought up above, about White Scars. SHOULD they be "all about bikes"? IIRC the Scars doctrine was lightning assaults, not "Mongolian space biker gang".

In fact, the original "Fat Bloke 'bullied' the staff into making him White Scars rules" from White Dwarf 230 (Feb 1999 when the original Chaos codex came out for 3rd edition) specifically says that "White Scars excel at hit-and-run attacks and are renown for their speed" and shows this as a special army list made for the battle report (keep in mind this is 3rd edition so many units from later wouldn't exist):

Spoiler:

HQ
All independent characters must start the game with a squad with room in its transport, or be given a jump pack or bike as part of their wargear. If the character has a command squad they must all be mounted in a Rhino, Razorback, or Land Raider. Alternatively, a command squad may be mounted on bikes for +20 points per model.

ELITES
Terminators must be mounted in a Land Raider.

TROOPS
Bike Squads - may have up to 10 models
Scout bike squads
Tactical squads must be mounted in a Rhino or Razorback

FAST ATTACK
Assault Squads
Land Speeders and all variants

HEAVY SUPPORT
Attack Bike squadrons
Land Raiders
Predators (cannot be given weapon sponsons)
Dreadnoughts

Dreads have a note that they are really cool but don't quite fit, but they're allowing it anyways with some jokes about having considered teleporting Dreads or rollerblades and rocket boosters

This is why a lot of people disliked the 4th edition White Scar rules specifically, as it actually restricted White Scars from using vehicles much when White Scars lore had them happily using any rapid attack method including drop pod assaults.

Aphyon already posted the full 3rd edition Index Astartes rules that are essentially a refined version of the rules you posted:

aphyon wrote:
the scars have never had a better set of rules than this-

Spoiler:

Here you can see that White Scars are encouraged to use a highly mobile force rather than a specifically-bikes force. This represents their preferred style of warfare. However, if your White Scars are forced to fight in a space hulk or underhive where bikes and vehicles are impractical, you could just pull your list from the default Space Marine codex. I think 3rd was great for that.

 catbarf wrote:


Neither, because you clearly have no idea what I'm talking about and seem to interpret 'flanderized' as 'things that only apply to some units', which isn't remotely correct.

Go back and re-read my previous posts, understand what's different between free-across-your-entire-army and paid-with-points bonuses, understand how bonuses that push certain archetypes by giving them benefits at no attendant disadvantage encourage flanderized depictions of a subfaction, and then we can have a conversation. I'm not going to go line-by-line on comparisons that fundamentally miss the point.

Ahhh, nope.

Here's your exact definition of flanderization:

 catbarf wrote:

Flanderization is when the game tacitly punishes you for taking anything other than the one-note stereotypical composition of that subfaction.

If Crimson Fists MUST ALWAYS take one less Elite, Fast Attack and Heavy, they are already more one note than their 9th equivalent because their composition MUST conform to a narrow focus- and that's before we even discuss the bonus part. Getting a bonus to hit squads that outnumber you (9th) may encoruage you to take min sized squads (which you and others will twist to "Tacitly punishes you if you don't" despite the fact that this is a relativist fallacy), but is that more one note than "If you want compensation to offset the penalty which you must take, you can only get it if you're fighting orks?"

In White Scars, it's even worse! You can only take one heavy tank ever. Always. How is that less one note than "anything in your army can charge even if it falls back or advances?" What makes it worse than the Crimson Fists is that if you want compensation for the always active penalty that FORCES you to have one note composition, you can only do that by taking bike units. You're being forced not to take one type of unit and encouraged to take another type of unit. The 9th rules do neither of these things.

So if one note composition of your army is your definition of Flanderization, 3rd/4th White Scars are the poster boys for it whether they pay for their advantages or not. 9th ed? Even your Termies can advance and charge if they want to, so there's no punishment tacit or otherwise for not taking bikes.

Now with Imperial Fists, the always-on penalty isn't at related to composition the way it is with you other two examples, so it doesn't one note the army. But if you want compensation for the always on penalty, that compensation applies only to tacticals and devastators, so back to one note... Although you could argue that a) tacticals are already encouraged by FOC, so applying a bonus to them doesn't do any more or less to encourage you to take them and b) the disadvantage is such a small one that your less likely to fell the need to max out the only two units in your list that qualify for the advantage.

But you are still far more encouraged to have one note composition by those rules than 9th's.

So your examples?

White Scars- super one note in 3rd/4th because the penalty forces exclusion of one unit type and the bonus encourages inclusion of another.
Crimson Fists- less one note because the bonus doesn't encourage specific units, but the always on penalty does exclude certain units
Imperial Fist- the least one note because the always on penalty has nothing to do with composition, even if the optional bonus does

And that's all true whether you pay for the bonus or not.

PenitentJake wrote:

So your examples?

White Scars- super one note in 3rd/4th because the penalty forces exclusion of one unit type and the bonus encourages inclusion of another.
Crimson Fists- less one note because the bonus doesn't encourage specific units, but the always on penalty does exclude certain units
Imperial Fist- the least one note because the always on penalty has nothing to do with composition, even if the optional bonus does

And that's all true whether you pay for the bonus or not.

For the sake of accuracy, that is true for 4th edition. 3rd edition had different and (IMO) superior rules for all of those Chapters. In addition, the 3rd edition paradigm was much more comfortable restricting some unit types as a sort of targeted version of the modern rule of three. It wasn't uncommon for a unit to be 0-1 or 0-2 in a given list.

See the post above yours for 3rd edition White Scars.

I think GW tried to tone down subfactions in 4th and 5th. By 5th, you might get a FOC reshuffle, and may get some specialised rules locked behind a special character.

I'd probably try and steer the conversation away from "my past edition could beat up your past edition". Preference is clearly going to be subjective - and I suspect for the large part tinged with nostalgia.

I think the discussion was better on "what are subfactions meant to accomplish?" Are they there to inspire you - or are they to offer meaningfully different ways of playing a collection of models?

I think its a fair criticism of 10th's detachments that they can sort of hint at the former (although its lacking enough flavour I think), but they are too specialised for the latter. I.E. if I look at Ad Mech, you have 2 notionally standard cross-faction detachments - and then you have "Spam Skitarii", "Spam Priests" and finally "Spam Robots and a few vehicles". Now even if we ignore that Ad Mech are I think the most expensive army in the game, having a sufficiently diverse collection to run these in a vaguely optimal way is probably out of the question. You certainly can't manage it with a classic White Dwarfesque soft-highlander collection (i.e. 1-2 boxes of every unit at most, no spam.)

But I guess this is more talking about mechanics again rather than rules into fluff. But I think its a much bigger question of whether say the new Marine detachments are "fun" (for whatever you find fun) rather than whether they should have been labelled RG, IF, WS etc.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Yeah, I'll take the 4th ed options where
1: I can build an entire army mounted on bike models
2: Has the wargear options available to customize units for roles as I see fit
3: Forgoes hidden, bespoke special rules that are invisible to my opponent, in favor of USRs known by all.
4: Characters can join and leave squads as they see fit.

For just pure eyeballs, one can be an entirely mounted bike army, plain as day, with options modeled, visible and paraded with pride. The other can bring no more bikes than any standard Space Marine army, appearing no different than any other Space Marine army that happens to have the same units, but somehow behaves differently without telegraphing any of that information.

"Sanitized" is an excellent word for the second option.

Why pick on the Techmarine? Give him a Servo-Harness and a Bike and attach him to a unit and add extra firepower, or ride around and smash things with his Servo-Harness Attacks. Or repair any vehicles that you bring along, but keep him on a bike to stick with the theme. Just an option to make a cool model if you want it.

#1 in a game where there's actual structured missions having an army of all move 20/22 makes for a very lopsided game. If you desire such a thing you can't also be for a balanced game.
#2 just because primaris gets limited loadouts doesn't mean 40K is sanitized. Chaos Bikers still have selective loadouts. Will they redo old marine bikes? No idea.
#3 isn't really true. Everything is pretty easily visible and digestible at the start of a game.
#4 is so rarely useful as to be not worth mentioning. Putting searchlights on all the vehicles might make you look like a genius when night fight is rolled, but at the end of the day isn't an engaging way to design a game just because you happened to drop that missile launcher for search lights.

Clearly there's a few ideas in this thread. This one being ultimate customization at the cost of literally everything else.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 aphyon wrote:

So you loved 9th then? ( like honestly, because I'm unsure - it's hard to know where people are coming from with multipleideas swirling around

I hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand burning stars. the only NU-40K i will use is index era 8th ed because we use it to play epic. we just halve all movement and ranges.

The FLGS oldhammer group i started uses core 5th ed with a few rules swapped out for their 4th ed counterpart that fit better with the game-
IE wound allocation, assaulting vehicles and sniper rifles. we allso added in snap fire, overwatch, and grenade throwing from 7th because they add a lot to the feel of the game in 5th.

we use whichever codex we feel best fits the lore of the army. but it must operate under 5th ed core rules and USRs. needless to say the vast majority of codexes come from 3rd and 4th with a few from 5th and occasionally 7th especially for factions that did not exist before that edition.

this is just my personal collection i keep with me on game night for anybody to use as needed.(not including chapter approved, every index astartes and forgeworld imperial armor book that i also have at home). as i consider them the best of the codexes GW has ever made for each faction.

Spoiler:

Anything else other players usually have in their collections as needed.-demons, knights, custodes etc....

Right, so I would say you don't actually care about customization as a concept. What you really care about is oldhammer.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:
Here you can see that White Scars are encouraged to use a highly mobile force rather than a specifically-bikes force. This represents their preferred style of warfare. However, if your White Scars are forced to fight in a space hulk or underhive where bikes and vehicles are impractical, you could just pull your list from the default Space Marine codex. I think 3rd was great for that.

Literally flanderized. There is only one rule there that isn't favored to bikes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
I'd probably try and steer the conversation away from "my past edition could beat up your past edition". Preference is clearly going to be subjective - and I suspect for the large part tinged with nostalgia.

I think the discussion was better on "what are subfactions meant to accomplish?" Are they there to inspire you - or are they to offer meaningfully different ways of playing a collection of models?

I think its a fair criticism of 10th's detachments that they can sort of hint at the former (although its lacking enough flavour I think), but they are too specialised for the latter. I.E. if I look at Ad Mech, you have 2 notionally standard cross-faction detachments - and then you have "Spam Skitarii", "Spam Priests" and finally "Spam Robots and a few vehicles". Now even if we ignore that Ad Mech are I think the most expensive army in the game, having a sufficiently diverse collection to run these in a vaguely optimal way is probably out of the question. You certainly can't manage it with a classic White Dwarfesque soft-highlander collection (i.e. 1-2 boxes of every unit at most, no spam.)

But I guess this is more talking about mechanics again rather than rules into fluff. But I think its a much bigger question of whether say the new Marine detachments are "fun" (for whatever you find fun) rather than whether they should have been labelled RG, IF, WS etc.

A large part of list design has to incorporate how you'll accomplish missions. You can't rely on your opponent bringing enough things of a certain type to go for fixed missions and so you need to be adaptable.

Otherwise people would just take blocks of terminators and centurions in Vanguard, shove their thumbs in their ears and say, "nah nah you can't kill me". In reality the game doesn't work as such and people who haven't played don't have a concept for it at all. It has far more generalship than the fiddly list building of yore.

And people can like what they like. I enjoyed my oldhammer days, but I've moved on. It's asserting that anything that isn't what they like is assumed bad is where it kind of goes off the rails.

PenitentJake wrote:
Ahhh, nope.

Here's your exact definition of flanderization:

You're still missing the forest for the trees. Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.

In the 8th/9th Ed system the more subfaction-appropriate units you take, the stronger your army is. If you don't take any subfaction-appropriate units, your army will be weak.

In the 3rd/4th Ed system the more subfaction-appropriate units you take, the more opportunities you have to spend points to make them stronger. It doesn't actually make your list stronger. If you don't take any subfaction-appropriate units, the rules explicitly encourage you to just use the vanilla list so that you aren't receiving drawbacks to no gain.

The first one is flanderizing because it rewards you for taking a certain subset of units and tacitly punishes you for taking others. The second one is not flanderizing because you can take whatever the feth you want and be neither rewarded nor penalized for it.

It's not about who benefits from the rules or whether they come with penalties. It's about whether your army's power level is affected by how hard you lean into the prescribed theme, and whether you have the freedom to deviate from it without ending up with a C-tier army as a result.

Tyel wrote:
I think the discussion was better on "what are subfactions meant to accomplish?" Are they there to inspire you - or are they to offer meaningfully different ways of playing a collection of models?

I think its a fair criticism of 10th's detachments that they can sort of hint at the former (although its lacking enough flavour I think), but they are too specialised for the latter. I.E. if I look at Ad Mech, you have 2 notionally standard cross-faction detachments - and then you have "Spam Skitarii", "Spam Priests" and finally "Spam Robots and a few vehicles". Now even if we ignore that Ad Mech are I think the most expensive army in the game, having a sufficiently diverse collection to run these in a vaguely optimal way is probably out of the question. You certainly can't manage it with a classic White Dwarfesque soft-highlander collection (i.e. 1-2 boxes of every unit at most, no spam.)

But I guess this is more talking about mechanics again rather than rules into fluff. But I think its a much bigger question of whether say the new Marine detachments are "fun" (for whatever you find fun) rather than whether they should have been labelled RG, IF, WS etc.

I agree with this, and also that the 10th Ed detachments tend to be awfully prescriptive and boil down to 'spam X'. As someone else mentioned earlier, the Assimilation Swarm detachment for example really does just come down to a couple of units taken en masse.

8th/9th tended to be less specific about the bonuses, but ones that amounted to 'spam melee' or 'spam ranged' or 'spam tanks' led directly to the soup that we saw in 8th. It wasn't just a tournament thing, it was straightforward to separate out the different elements of your army to get appropriate bonuses. That wasn't particularly inspiring, but it at least offered more diversity in list composition than when your whole army became locked into a single bonus and the choices became more straightforward.

I think the deeper issue is that there's only so much you can do with giving units bonuses. You can make certain units better, but often it doesn't substantially change how they play or how the army as a whole plays; you just take more of the appropriate units. If you want to encourage meaningfully different ways to play a collection of models, then the changes need to be more meaningfully different.

I remember the Seeding Swarm, an alternate Tyranid list from... 3rd, I think? It restricted how many heavy-hitters you could take, but gave the entire army Deep Strike. It also came with a few extra options, like paying points to have a unit amped up on lethal levels of stimulants, so it would get a combat bonus but always count as destroyed at the end of the battle. That's the sort of alternate list that makes me think about how the models in my collection could be used in new and different ways, since it played very differently from vanilla despite using all the same units.

I find that more engaging than looking at a detachment, seeing what handful of models it buffs, and checking whether I have enough of those to build a list. YMMV.

For the uninitiated, literally what is "Flanderization" mean in this context?