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 Wyldhunt wrote:
Leafblower existed as early as 5th edition

As early as 3rd edition with Iron Warriors.

Setting a three heavy support slot limit to prevent game-wrecking alpha strikes didn't work when armies were fielding more than twice that. Though some of the 'planet bowling ball' table setups didn't help.

A.T. wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Leafblower existed as early as 5th edition

As early as 3rd edition with Iron Warriors.

Setting a three heavy support slot limit to prevent game-wrecking alpha strikes didn't work when armies were fielding more than twice that. Though some of the 'planet bowling ball' table setups didn't help.

Iron Warriors could take 4 Heavy support slots, not 7+? How are you getting more than twice other forces without multiple detachments?

Sticking to basic missions also didn't help.

 Haighus wrote:
Iron Warriors could take 4 Heavy support slots, not 7+? How are you getting more than twice other forces without multiple detachments?

Obliterators were mis-slotted heavy support units.

That said 4e marines could take devastators in elite slots which I always thought was rather missing the point of having an FoC in the first place.

ccs wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
I actually think the difference between FOC and the 'new' system, at least for some armies, is fairly minor. I take maybe 2-3 Battleline every time due to them having OC2.
IDK. It wouldn't be too onerous.

The key here is that you want to take those battleline units. Now imagine if the rules of the edition made you not want to take them but forced you to take them anyway. And also your opponent's troop tax is 100 points cheaper than yours, so he functionally has 100 more points to spend on stuff he's excited about than you do.

Now imagine you actively dislike the models that comprise a factions "troops".
Models =/= rules.
I will deal with bad rules.
But I will not waste my $ buying models I dislike. I will not own them.
This always prevented from making a Drukhari army as I dislike all the model options for the troops. I still don't like them (though theyve improved).

Without the old FoC?
I can now field a force using just the models I do like.

Those are both fair critiques of the lone grand FOC, though I feel they can be solved with something like Bolt Action's platoon system (which might as well be the descendant or evolution of the FOC, game design wise).

Lemme explain my viewpoint.

Personally, I've always been a mixed hobbyist and gameplayer. I don't do tournaments, but I've also never played anything but matched play of various points levels.

My 'faction fantasy', so to speak, is largely Marines on foot with melee and close-range weapons, with some supporting armor. I like my Troops. I am the freak who likes Intercessors. Obviously, a White Scar player's 'faction fantasy' would be different, as would an Iron Hands player. And of course, an Imperial Guard player or Biel-Tan player (to use a alien example) might want to field either an armored company, an infantry-heavy force, or mechanized infantry with armor support.

This can be accounted for fairly readily, while limiting how much and in what proportions you can take things. I feel the 10th system is a compromise between that and the freedom we would typically associate with Unbound armies. Obviously, you currently take 1 detachment, from 1 faction, with a limit on how many duplicates you can take. A good evolution, in my mind, would be to set a limit on how much of each non-Battleline you can take. However, we could also remove the limit on detachments from a single faction you can take if you fill out the minimum 'slots'.

Of course, there are some problems - I remember the era of soup and the ensuing complaints well. An allies matrix or something like it might thusly need to be reinvented.

 RaptorusRex wrote:

Lemme explain my viewpoint.

Personally, I've always been a mixed hobbyist and gameplayer. I don't do tournaments, but I've also never played anything but matched play of various points levels.

My 'faction fantasy', so to speak, is largely Marines on foot with melee and close-range weapons, with some supporting armor. I like my Troops. I am the freak who likes Intercessors. Obviously, a White Scar player's 'faction fantasy' would be different, as would an Iron Hands player. And of course, an Imperial Guard player or Biel-Tan player (to use a alien example) might want to field either an armored company, an infantry-heavy force, or mechanized infantry with armor support.

It's cool that you like troops. I like troops in some of my armies too! But as you point out, players' "faction fantasies" don't always involve troops. Mandatory troops (be it with or without an FOC) basically just interferes with a bunch of faction fantasies while also introducing the problems resulting from different degrees of troop tax described above.

Or put another way, it's cool that you like eating carrots. Some people hate carrots or at least don't want to have to eat carrots for every single meal, and you can see why they were miffed about the law making carrots a mandatory part of all meals.

This can be accounted for fairly readily, while limiting how much and in what proportions you can take things. I feel the 10th system is a compromise between that and the freedom we would typically associate with Unbound armies. Obviously, you currently take 1 detachment, from 1 faction, with a limit on how many duplicates you can take. A good evolution, in my mind, would be to set a limit on how much of each non-Battleline you can take. However, we could also remove the limit on detachments from a single faction you can take if you fill out the minimum 'slots'.

I'm not fully following. Can you elaborate on that? By "each non-Battleline," do you mean the old force org slots? (FA, HS, Elites, etc?) If so, how do you address the issue of thematic, not-broken combinations being prevented by that sort of limitation? See previous example about vypers and shining spears competing for FA slots in a Saim-Hann list. And what are the "minimum slots" we're talking about in this context? Are we just talking about unlocking additional duplicates of the FOC if you take even more troops?

Of course, there are some problems - I remember the era of soup and the ensuing complaints well. An allies matrix or something like it might thusly need to be reinvented.

I feel like there should probably be an explicitly not-for-tournament-use version of Matched Play and that allies should be a part of that. Let people bring allies. Give them their own detachmente rules and strats or don't. And just acknowledge that bringing allies could possibly result in some relatively unbalanced lists and encourage people to only use allies in friendly, thematic games rather than in tournaments.

I think you are going to have to accept that if you have the FOC, you are going to have to disappoint some people.

I mean it seems a bit silly to say you want restrictions - but then if someone wants to run a Space Marine armoured company, which is all Repulsors and Gladiators, (or Predators etc) then fine they can do that.

And why not? It seems silly to say "We decided 30+ years ago that certain army types are fluffy. So if Guard want to bring 10 tanks they can, but other factions can't".

The problem is "that's not fluffy" is always going to be subjective.

The real issue I had with the old FOC is that it often felt irrelevant outside of Heavy Support (okay not for all factions). I mean who was going "nooo, Eldar cannot bring more Vypers or Shining Spears, that's going to break the game." Which is arguably the same with the rule of 3. So many more units could be Battleline without it "really" mattering.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I'm not fully following. Can you elaborate on that? By "each non-Battleline," do you mean the old force org slots? (FA, HS, Elites, etc?) If so, how do you address the issue of thematic, not-broken combinations being prevented by that sort of limitation? See previous example about vypers and shining spears competing for FA slots in a Saim-Hann list. And what are the "minimum slots" we're talking about in this context? Are we just talking about unlocking additional duplicates of the FOC if you take even more troops?

I would say that by 'non-battleline', I mean the various support assets - FA, HS, Elites - as a category. You can have X of that, or you can swap what is Battleline. I'm sorry I'm not communicating my ideas well, but I do think the new platoon system for Bolt Action 3E does it pretty well.

In our homebrew we use the old FOC and have a rule that says that at least 25% of your army's total points must be filled out with troops. Any kind of unit upgrades count towards the limit, dedicated transports do not.

Most factions have access to something I coined "Archetypes", which let players move units around in the FOC at the cost of restricting the army composition.

Example 1:


Example 2:


I feel this is a good compromise between the freedom to play with themed lists and keeping a uniform look on the table.

Tyel wrote:

The real issue I had with the old FOC is that it often felt irrelevant outside of Heavy Support (okay not for all factions). I mean who was going "nooo, Eldar cannot bring more Vypers or Shining Spears, that's going to break the game." Which is arguably the same with the rule of 3. So many more units could be Battleline without it "really" mattering.

Well put. I think what the FOC, the 8th and 9th detachment systems were going for was basically just to keep people from either spamming all the most efficient options OR perhaps to discourage skew. Can't field nothing but shooty tanks if all your shooty tanks are Heavy Support. But both systems failed at this a long time ago. Some units that are fast also shoot big guns. Some troops are sneaky like stealthy elites. Some armies "troops" are more powerful and few in number than other armies "elites."

The FOC represents a vague sentiment that armies should be well-rounded without actually forcing armies to be well-rounded. And without acknowledging whether skew armies actually should be a thing.

In our homebrew we use the old FOC and have a rule that says that at least 25% of your army's total points must be filled out with troops. Any kind of unit upgrades count towards the limit, dedicated transports do not.

Most factions have access to something I coined "Archetypes", which let players move units around in the FOC at the cost of restricting the army composition.

Your examples look cool and absolutely seem like rules I'd enjoy playing with! But if you take a step back, aren't you functionally just creating a roundabout way of acknowledging that a lot of units are perfectly fine being "troops" or "battleline"?

Like, we all know that spamming bikes without spamming tactical marine sprobably doesn't break the game. We all know that fielding four flavors of chaos in the same army is fine. We all know that an entire list consisting of nothing but Fire Prisms and Night Spinners would be game-breaking. We all know that it's perfectly fluffy for some subfactions to not field troops.

Instead of arbitrarily deciding that a handful of units are fine to spam while others aren't and then forcing some of the non-spammable options to compete for limited slots based on broad and questionable categories... What if we just marked units as "spicy."

Go through your codex. Look at each datasheet. Would the game break if your opponent fielded more than 3 of those? If so, that's a spicy unit. Otherwise, leave it alone and let your opponent field as many as he wants. Make a rule saying that only X% of your army can be made up of spicy units. And then add some sort of rule to address horde skew and vehicle skew and you're golden.

No forcing Death Wing to field green marines. No forcing Iybraesil to field guardians instead of banshees because no one thought to add an Archetype or named character that makes banshees troops. Just figure out which units get out of hand if you field a bunch of them.

I don't think the decision for what were troops and what were not was arbitrary, it was supposed to repesent units which were most common in the fictional universe of 40k. That is clearly the rationale.

I always liked it because it matched what I imagined fairly well, most of the time. Stuff like Nidzllla I found a bit sad to play against.

But it's not so bad that they got rid of it. The free for all approach has a lot of advantages too.

 Da Boss wrote:
I don't think the decision for what were troops and what were not was arbitrary, it was supposed to repesent units which were most common in the fictional universe of 40k. That is clearly the rationale.

Right, except they didn't always account for subfactions that explicitly use non-troops in place of troops. So if you wanted to field a Death Wing or Iybraesil army, you had to hope they remembered to add an exception to let you field terminators or banshees as troops. So in terms of fluff, the FOC failed because it didn't always account for perfectly fluffy options.

And in terms of gameplay, something like banshees as troops is probably less disruptive than things like armored companies or even just bikes as troops. So in effect, the FOC was preventing fluffy armies rather than facilitating them (nothing would have stopped UM players from fielding tactical marines for the sake of fluff if you removed the troop tax).

And also you had armies like Grey Knights or Imperial Fists who could field terminators (normally non-troops) as troops. So it's obvious that they didn't think spamming terminators was actually a problem, but they opted to only make it available to grey and yellow marines.

So the FOC was preventing fluffy armies rather than facilitating them, and it was preventing you from fielding the units you wanted for reasons that were divorced from gameplay.

Which edition didn't allow for complete Deathwing or Ravenwing armies? Even 3rd, the edition that introduced the FoC, had the ability to do that. The restrictions that accompanied such armies was the loss of non-Deathwing or non-Ravenwing troops respectively.

 Haighus wrote:
Which edition didn't allow for complete Deathwing or Ravenwing armies? Even 3rd, the edition that introduced the FoC, had the ability to do that. The restrictions that accompanied such armies was the loss of non-Deathwing or non-Ravenwing troops respectively.

Two things.

1) That really feels like an acknowledgment that the force org chart doesn’t work for all armies.
2) What if your subfaction doesn’t get direct support? Ibryaesil (I probably spelled that wrong, but I’m phone posting) the Craftworld that uses Banshees as troops?

 Haighus wrote:
Which edition didn't allow for complete Deathwing or Ravenwing armies? Even 3rd, the edition that introduced the FoC, had the ability to do that. The restrictions that accompanied such armies was the loss of non-Deathwing or non-Ravenwing troops respectively.

Not saying that DW weren't allowed to go sans power armor. I was using them as an example of an iconic army that doesn't use conventional troops. They illustrate how terminators-as-troops is fine actually, so why only allow terminator troops for some marines and not others?

And given that a lot of other non-troop units would probably be perfectly fine as troops, why create a system that prevents people from using the units they want to use? If banshees-as-troops is fluffy for Iybraesil and not broken, then why are banshees elites? If someone writes lore about their homebrew craftworld that favors the use of striking scorpions over guardians, and if scorpions-as-troops isn't broken, why aren't scorpions troops?

If you want to play a non-vanilla version of an army, you're left hoping that someone at GW bothered to grace you with an exception to the FOC rules. And whether or not you get an exception doesn't seem to have much to do with game balance. Because if it did, you'd have troop banshees, and you probably wouldn't have 5th edition leaf blower guard.

EDIT: JNA ninja'd me and made my point more elegantly.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Which edition didn't allow for complete Deathwing or Ravenwing armies? Even 3rd, the edition that introduced the FoC, had the ability to do that. The restrictions that accompanied such armies was the loss of non-Deathwing or non-Ravenwing troops respectively.

Not saying that DW weren't allowed to go sans power armor. I was using them as an example of an iconic army that doesn't use conventional troops. They illustrate how terminators-as-troops is fine actually, so why only allow terminator troops for some marines and not others?

And given that a lot of other non-troop units would probably be perfectly fine as troops, why create a system that prevents people from using the units they want to use? If banshees-as-troops is fluffy for Iybraesil and not broken, then why are banshees elites? If someone writes lore about their homebrew craftworld that favors the use of striking scorpions over guardians, and if scorpions-as-troops isn't broken, why aren't scorpions troops?

If you want to play a non-vanilla version of an army, you're left hoping that someone at GW bothered to grace you with an exception to the FOC rules. And whether or not you get an exception doesn't seem to have much to do with game balance. Because if it did, you'd have troop banshees, and you probably wouldn't have 5th edition leaf blower guard.

EDIT: JNA ninja'd me and made my point more elegantly.

I think this shows how a good idea got gradually diluted though. I keep referring to 3rd because I think it did the FOC best, which does make sense given it was the edition that introduced it. In 3rd, significant FOC shifts generally came with significant restrictions. To continue with the Deathwing example, in 3rd taking Terminators as Troops required massively restricting the list to only Terminators, Dreadnoughts, and Landraiders. So to get that specialised force, you had to go all in. If you wanted a balanced force, well, Terminators aren't Troops in a balanced force.

5th edition is really a different beast and shows a different method of using the FOC that I think was much more flawed. This was very much the era of "XYZ character allows ABC unit to be Troops", which does undermine the FOC and generally had minimal restrictions. This trend started in 4th with only a couple of exceptions in 3rd. I prefer the approach generally used in 3rd of different army lists for different styles of force, which is relatively close to the current system of detachments but with more structure.

I don't think the FOC is purely for game balance or lore, I think it provides a bit of both. When done well it means most armies look like a structured force from that faction you would find in the lore. It isn't perfect, but most of the issues are with codex choices over the FOC itself.

JNAProductions wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Which edition didn't allow for complete Deathwing or Ravenwing armies? Even 3rd, the edition that introduced the FoC, had the ability to do that. The restrictions that accompanied such armies was the loss of non-Deathwing or non-Ravenwing troops respectively.

Two things.

1) That really feels like an acknowledgment that the force org chart doesn’t work for all armies.
2) What if your subfaction doesn’t get direct support? Ibryaesil (I probably spelled that wrong, but I’m phone posting) the Craftworld that uses Banshees as troops?

1) Well, no more so than different armies using different units in different roles. Scouts are a basic unit for Marines but are as elite as Imperial Guard Stormtroopers on a broader scale.
2) That was accounted for at one point. You could run an Eldar army with most Aspect Warriors as Troops in 3rd. It made Guardians into Elites and flipped the rarity on those unit types.

I see a lot of commentary on thr FOC’s failings and, personally, I think there are two fairly valid points.

First and foremost, being able to reorganize the FOC by some armies invalidated it with false negatives, ergo the ‘my jet bike army only has one elite slot, oh noooooo’ when someone wasn’t planning on running elites.

Secondly, the slots bring a little nonsensical sometimes. Why are shining spears and wind riders in different slots when they’re both fast, that kinda thing.

As an oldish 40k player, I still have my 3rd and 4th edition BRBs, as well as the Battle Missions book, and I’ve been leading through them. And quite frankly they both solve and answer these problems, specifically because the old FOC wasn’t a stand alone balancing factor.

Many of the missions in these books have restrictions on what can be deployed and how. Between restrictions forcing particular slots into reserves (usually heavy support and fast attack), as well as some missions straight up not allowing certain sides to be placed into reserves by choice, it’s made abundantly clear that the various slots on the force org chart are as much to restrict deployment as they are to restrict list choices. Sure, the Iron Warriors could load up on heavy support slots, but a solid 50% of missions they’d could play would result in all that heavy support starting off the table, losing out on multiple turns of participation. Like wise the Eldar could run a full bike list, but if they got Bunker Assault they’d start with nothing on the table, or if they got last stand they’d all start in the middle of the table and be forced to play static defense.

The FOC was never meant to be the sole gatekeeper of army composition balance; it was meant to be part of a system which encouraged people to build varied TAC lists with a mixture of slots and roles, which in turn allowed for heavy specialization but at the cost of quite a few missions making those specialized great in some cases, but truly awful in just as many.

In turn this also makes some of the troop disparities make sense. Tactical marines were far from good in 3rd and 4th edition, being a mish-mash of various roles and not amazing at any of them. But when viewed through the lense of that kind of mission variety, it suddenly becomes much more advantageous to have a squad of troops that can hold its own in assault, is resistant to most weapons in the game, and won’t run off the table if it gets hit by the big stuff.

I agree that the FOC was not perfect, but I personally prefer it. HH2 feels like a happy medium atm, with 1 FOC most of the time, but with rites of war or equivalents allowing more unit to be troops or more slots to be taken. Or, alternatively, allows a specific unit to be scoring or "Line".

as it stands, I think it is more of a failure of the rules writers than it is a failure of the concept itself. As written by Wyld a lot, the fact that you cannot substitute in striking scorpions or banshees instead of guardians is a failure of the person writing the rules when it is clearly stated as what some factions do.

Then again, the loss of it means a loss of speciality among factions. If every space marine chapter, from the newest fresh founding to the ancient legions where able take terminators, what makes dark angels special as an organization?

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

That wasn't my experience. Marines were an obvious example because most infantry units aside from tacticals were just tacticals with better gear. Plus marines (like many factions) had units that were basically just +1 versions of their troops (see: sternguard).

Sternguard only came about in 5th edition. But even then, of course you're spending more for the unit, when Tacticals are giving you wounds for fewer points, and basic Marine bodies were valuable on their own if you leaned into "punch the shooty, shoot the punchy", and the fact that, starting in 5th, Frag and Krak were standard equipment.

For context, I didn't really play until 5th edition.

Sitting back on the objective didn't really have much value until 8th(?) because scoring was generally done end of game. Having a tac squad on an objective turns 1-4 didn't matter; what you cared about was having them there turn 5, 6, or 7 depending on when the game randomly ended. And if you really need a cheap objective sitter, scouts were usually the better choice because they were cheaper and could take sniper rifles. And don't forget that if you gave your tac marines a heavy weapon, they couldn't shoot it at a tank unless they wanted to waste their bolter shots against it too. Whereas a specialist squad like devastators or sternguard could take 4 weapons that wanted to shoot at that tank.

All of those arguments are pretty standard reasoning, I get it.

The counter example I'll give will start coming from 3rd and 4th because of how the points worked out, and it makes the case clearer. In 3rd and 4th, a Lascannon for a Tactial Squad cost 15, while for a Devastator Squad it was 35. This is because of the sacrificed utility you mention because of the "wasted bolter shots". This meant relative costs were:

5 man Tactical w/Lascannon - 90
5 man Devastators/w 4 Lascannons - 215
10 Man Devastator Squad with 4 Lascannons - 290

To put it another way:
5 wounds, 5 attacks, 1 bolter, 4 Lascannons 215 - can shoot one target, is a juicy target for the opponent
10 wounds, 10 attacks, 8 bolters, 2 Lascannons 180 points - can shoot two targets
10 wounds, 10 attacks, 6 bolters, 4 Lascannons 290 points - can shoot one target
15 wounds, 15 attacks, 12 bolters, 3 Lascannons 270 points - can shoot three targets
20 wounds, 20 attacks, 16 bolters, 4 Lascannons 360 points - can shoot four targets


For the cost of 5 bodies with four Lascannons you get 10 bodies and two Lascannons that can fire at different targets. The 5 Marines with four Lascannons is a very juicy target for your opponent, and each of those Lascannon wielding Devastators is 50ppm, for a T4 3+ 1W model. You can bulk the Devastator Squad for extra protection, but then you're paying 290 points for 10 bodies for four Lascannons, which is 20 more points than three 5 man Tac Squads giving you 15 bodies wielding 3 Lascannons that can operate independently. As a bonus, in the 3rd-4th paradigm those independent Lascannons were quite helpful because of the reasonable chance that a single solid hit against a vehicle would grant a sustained effect like Shaken, Stunned or better, and you were free to choose whether you wanted to focus fire further on the same target, or switch fire to attempt to suppress further vehicle targets. But of course, if the battle called for focusing on attacking infantry, you have more bolters, wounds and attacks as well. If you were purely looking at AT firepower, the Devs were better point for point, but if you were counting on the fact that your models will actually get shot at, the Tacticals actually compete quite well. But of course they also brought more flexibility in both target selection with AT and mission selection in terms of which job you give them game to game and turn to turn, as they bring more Bolter fire and CC attacks. Not to mention being more likely to be in a position to leverage the spectacular ATSKNF rules as well, which shined in close quarters.

In truth how this ideally manifested is you have your Devastators or other fire support units in the Heavy slots anyways, but you use the Tacs to make a lot of overlapping firing lanes, hopefully starting to get flanking shots, and fire them in the most advantageous order in the firing phase to capitalize on the random damage results that occur. But that's against armor. Against horde armies, or in the moment of battle where it's more necessary to target infantry, the Tacs only spend 15 points on their Lascannon, so it's not nearly as problematic if you're pointing it at Orks or whatever instead.

5th edition changed the scenario a bit. It dropped the cost of a Devastator Lascannon to 20(or 25?), while also equipping every Marine with Frag, Krak and a Bolt Pistol by default. The price cut obviously helped the Devs, but the extra equipment favored Tacs, because getting into the mix of things is more their style of mission. Another important thing 5th did was bring back Combat Squads, which basically allowed you to rearrange your squads before the battle, optimizing for Drop Pod offense, 10-man unit defensive builds, or whatever you wanted. This change was also better for Tacticals because their mission is inherently more flexible, whereas the Devs were likely to deploy the same way every battle to maximize their weaponry.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Leafblower existed as early as 5th edition

As early as 3rd edition with Iron Warriors.

Setting a three heavy support slot limit to prevent game-wrecking alpha strikes didn't work when armies were fielding more than twice that. Though some of the 'planet bowling ball' table setups didn't help.

Iron Warriors could take 4 Heavy support slots, not 7+? How are you getting more than twice other forces without multiple detachments?

Sticking to basic missions also didn't help.

Iron Warriors unlocked the ability to take more than one squad of Obliterators, which I think were Elite. So 4 Support slots, plus 3 squads of Obliterators, which were technically Elites, but played like HS choices.

Space Marines using the 4th ed codex got an option to take Veteran Devastators as an Elite choice, so essentially also 6 HS choices.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
...What if we just marked units as "spicy."

Go through your codex. Look at each datasheet. Would the game break if your opponent fielded more than 3 of those? If so, that's a spicy unit...

This is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how we'd go about determining whether a unit is reliably "game-breaking". There would be some units that have general consensus as "spicy", of course, but there would also be lots of edge cases - units that are only "spicy" with a given equipment loadout, or because of a buff from another unit, or are generally mild but reeeaaallly spicy against a certain type of list (not to mention the subjectivity of players who might consider a unit "spicy" because it's a hard-counter to their preferred units or playstyle or they had a bad experience with them). How would we determine such cases?

 RaptorusRex wrote:
but I do think the new platoon system for Bolt Action 3E does it pretty well.

Not gonna lie, I love how close that is to the old 3.5e/5e IG Platoon layout. Brings back memories, that does.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Your examples look cool and absolutely seem like rules I'd enjoy playing with! But if you take a step back, aren't you functionally just creating a roundabout way of acknowledging that a lot of units are perfectly fine being "troops" or "battleline"?

Like, we all know that spamming bikes without spamming tactical marine sprobably doesn't break the game. We all know that fielding four flavors of chaos in the same army is fine. We all know that an entire list consisting of nothing but Fire Prisms and Night Spinners would be game-breaking. We all know that it's perfectly fluffy for some subfactions to not field troops.

Instead of arbitrarily deciding that a handful of units are fine to spam while others aren't and then forcing some of the non-spammable options to compete for limited slots based on broad and questionable categories... What if we just marked units as "spicy."

Go through your codex. Look at each datasheet. Would the game break if your opponent fielded more than 3 of those? If so, that's a spicy unit. Otherwise, leave it alone and let your opponent field as many as he wants. Make a rule saying that only X% of your army can be made up of spicy units. And then add some sort of rule to address horde skew and vehicle skew and you're golden.

No forcing Death Wing to field green marines. No forcing Iybraesil to field guardians instead of banshees because no one thought to add an Archetype or named character that makes banshees troops. Just figure out which units get out of hand if you field a bunch of them.

For context: With one notable exception where you have to reach your opponents deployment zone to score, we only play missions with mission objectives. Some of them include "destroy enemy units and get 50% of their value as Victory Points" on top. Everything can secure and score, but only troops get "sticky objectives". So there are two advantages to being a troop selection in our system. You can fill your mandatory 25% with better units and you don't have to park an expensive unit forever on an objective in order to hold it.

I have made the experience that allowing other units as troops don't lead to the desired outcome. For a long time players could take Bikers and Outriders as troops without any further restriction. But instead of seeing "White Scars" or "Ravenwing" armies, you would see that one bike unit the player was fielding anyway all the time as a troop selection. I'm a little fluffbunny at heart and this just didn't sit well with me and that is why I put more restriction into it. -> If you want to make "Fast" a core flavour of your army, it should be represented accordingly by bringing a minimum amount of these models.

While I agree that some units are completely safe to be spammed like Banshees (low resilience, slow on its own, melee only), some others like Bikes (fast, tough, decent ranged and melee potential) are completely outshining something like an infantry squad for Guard, even at equal points spent. It is just that the combination of traits make for a better synergy than the other. -> The other reason for the comp restriction.

So it is not just about the "who can be troops" but the "how can they be troops" as well for me.

(By the way, since you keep mentioning it: Our Eldar are able to pick the Archetype "Aspect Focus" to make Aspect warriors a troop selection at the cost of moving every other troop choice to Elite. I did some background search for all factions when I implemented the first bunch of types )

 morganfreeman wrote:
As an oldish 40k player, I still have my 3rd and 4th edition BRBs, as well as the Battle Missions book, and I’ve been leading through them. And quite frankly they both solve and answer these problems, specifically because the old FOC wasn’t a stand alone balancing factor.

Many of the missions in these books have restrictions on what can be deployed and how. Between restrictions forcing particular slots into reserves (usually heavy support and fast attack), as well as some missions straight up not allowing certain sides to be placed into reserves by choice, it’s made abundantly clear that the various slots on the force org chart are as much to restrict deployment as they are to restrict list choices. Sure, the Iron Warriors could load up on heavy support slots, but a solid 50% of missions they’d could play would result in all that heavy support starting off the table, losing out on multiple turns of participation. Like wise the Eldar could run a full bike list, but if they got Bunker Assault they’d start with nothing on the table, or if they got last stand they’d all start in the middle of the table and be forced to play static defense.

The FOC was never meant to be the sole gatekeeper of army composition balance; it was meant to be part of a system which encouraged people to build varied TAC lists with a mixture of slots and roles, which in turn allowed for heavy specialization but at the cost of quite a few missions making those specialized great in some cases, but truly awful in just as many.

In turn this also makes some of the troop disparities make sense. Tactical marines were far from good in 3rd and 4th edition, being a mish-mash of various roles and not amazing at any of them. But when viewed through the lense of that kind of mission variety, it suddenly becomes much more advantageous to have a squad of troops that can hold its own in assault, is resistant to most weapons in the game, and won’t run off the table if it gets hit by the big stuff.

We recently played through those asymmetric 3rd and 4th edition missions and while I agree that mission objectives in general serve as a balancing factor, rolling them randomly without adjusting your army afterwards leads to a lot of miserable experiences. Bunker assault is a prime example. If the defender brings a gunline and the attacker only slow moving units, you may as well shake hands and roll again for another mission to play.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
As an oldish 40k player, I still have my 3rd and 4th edition BRBs, as well as the Battle Missions book, and I’ve been leading through them. And quite frankly they both solve and answer these problems, specifically because the old FOC wasn’t a stand alone balancing factor.

Many of the missions in these books have restrictions on what can be deployed and how. Between restrictions forcing particular slots into reserves (usually heavy support and fast attack), as well as some missions straight up not allowing certain sides to be placed into reserves by choice, it’s made abundantly clear that the various slots on the force org chart are as much to restrict deployment as they are to restrict list choices. Sure, the Iron Warriors could load up on heavy support slots, but a solid 50% of missions they’d could play would result in all that heavy support starting off the table, losing out on multiple turns of participation. Like wise the Eldar could run a full bike list, but if they got Bunker Assault they’d start with nothing on the table, or if they got last stand they’d all start in the middle of the table and be forced to play static defense.

The FOC was never meant to be the sole gatekeeper of army composition balance; it was meant to be part of a system which encouraged people to build varied TAC lists with a mixture of slots and roles, which in turn allowed for heavy specialization but at the cost of quite a few missions making those specialized great in some cases, but truly awful in just as many.

In turn this also makes some of the troop disparities make sense. Tactical marines were far from good in 3rd and 4th edition, being a mish-mash of various roles and not amazing at any of them. But when viewed through the lense of that kind of mission variety, it suddenly becomes much more advantageous to have a squad of troops that can hold its own in assault, is resistant to most weapons in the game, and won’t run off the table if it gets hit by the big stuff.

We recently played through those asymmetric 3rd and 4th edition missions and while I agree that mission objectives in general serve as a balancing factor, rolling them randomly without adjusting your army afterwards leads to a lot of miserable experiences. Bunker assault is a prime example. If the defender brings a gunline and the attacker only slow moving units, you may as well shake hands and roll again for another mission to play.

The defender in Bunker Assault only deploys with HQ and Troops. Unless all their firepower is in those slots, they will really struggle with most gunline builds because they are stuck in reserve, and may not even be able to fire when they come on from reserves.

The mission is supposed to be an enemy assault on a previously-quiet section of the line with reinforcements rushing in to counter attack any breach.

If you wanted an all Banshee force in 3e you would use the Craftworld codex that allowed a Biel Tan Swordwind Host where Guardians were Elite and Aspect Warriors were troops.

All terminators, use Dark Angels. And so on.

If you are hoping there if a fluffy list that allows you to bypass the FOC, it makes you wonder why you need the FOC in the first place.

 morganfreeman wrote:
I see a lot of commentary on thr FOC’s failings and, personally, I think there are two fairly valid points.

First and foremost, being able to reorganize the FOC by some armies invalidated it with false negatives, ergo the ‘my jet bike army only has one elite slot, oh noooooo’ when someone wasn’t planning on running elites.

Secondly, the slots bring a little nonsensical sometimes. Why are shining spears and wind riders in different slots when they’re both fast, that kinda thing.

As an oldish 40k player, I still have my 3rd and 4th edition BRBs, as well as the Battle Missions book, and I’ve been leading through them. And quite frankly they both solve and answer these problems, specifically because the old FOC wasn’t a stand alone balancing factor.

Many of the missions in these books have restrictions on what can be deployed and how. Between restrictions forcing particular slots into reserves (usually heavy support and fast attack), as well as some missions straight up not allowing certain sides to be placed into reserves by choice, it’s made abundantly clear that the various slots on the force org chart are as much to restrict deployment as they are to restrict list choices. Sure, the Iron Warriors could load up on heavy support slots, but a solid 50% of missions they’d could play would result in all that heavy support starting off the table, losing out on multiple turns of participation. Like wise the Eldar could run a full bike list, but if they got Bunker Assault they’d start with nothing on the table, or if they got last stand they’d all start in the middle of the table and be forced to play static defense.

The FOC was never meant to be the sole gatekeeper of army composition balance; it was meant to be part of a system which encouraged people to build varied TAC lists with a mixture of slots and roles, which in turn allowed for heavy specialization but at the cost of quite a few missions making those specialized great in some cases, but truly awful in just as many.

In turn this also makes some of the troop disparities make sense. Tactical marines were far from good in 3rd and 4th edition, being a mish-mash of various roles and not amazing at any of them. But when viewed through the lense of that kind of mission variety, it suddenly becomes much more advantageous to have a squad of troops that can hold its own in assault, is resistant to most weapons in the game, and won’t run off the table if it gets hit by the big stuff.

I very much agree with this post. I think it would be illustrative to show how FOC and unit type fits into those missions. I will be using the 4th edition versions of the missions, but the 3rd edition versions are mostly identical with the common exception of how infiltrators work.

Standard FOC:

Standard missions (all use the standard FOC):
Cleanse: players alternate deploying units to the board, but they have to deploy their units in the following order- Heavy support, Troops, Elites, HQ, Fast attack. This means that Heavy support is the easiest unit type to counter via deployment and Fast attack is the hardest. The mobility and flexibility of the units is broadly reflected in their FOC role.
Secure and Control: as above.
Seek and Destroy: as above.
Recon: as above.
Take and Hold: as above.

Special missions (also use the standard FOC):
Night Fight: as above.
Rescue: only Troops deployed at the start with at least one Troops unit required to start, other units are in reserve.
Patrol: one unit of Troops each, everything else in reserve (technically units with the Scouts USR can also deploy).

Alternative FOCs:

Battle missions (use the battles FOC):
Bunker Assault: defender can only deploy HQ and Troops, other units in reserve. Attacker deploys entire army.
Hold at All Costs: defender can only deploy Troops and Heavy support, others in reserve. Attacker moves onto board in first turn (note this prevents most heavy weapons from firing in the first turn).
Meat Grinder: players alternate deploying units to the board, but they have to deploy their units in the following order- Heavy support, Troops, Elites, HQ, Fast attack (as per the standard missions).

Raid missions (use the raids FOC):
Sabotage: sentries deployment for the attacker (can deploy any units, but vehicles and bikes immediately raise the alarm), units move on in the first "turn". Defenders can place Troops and HQ, other units in reserve.
Ambush: no deployment restrictions by unit type. Approximately half of the attacker's army is in reserve with the other half using hidden set up deployment, the defender has to escape off the opposite board edge favouring fast-moving units.
Strongpoint Attack: defender deploys Troops, HQ, and Heavy support, other units are in reserve. Attacker deploys entire army, but with the sentry deployment mentioned above.

Breakthrough missions (use the breakthrough FOC):
Rearguard: no unit type restrictions. Defender only has about half of their army available for the game, deployed with hidden set up. The attacker has half their army move on in the first turn (affecting heavy weapons), and the other half in reserve.
Blitz: defender deploys Troops, HQ, and Heavy support, other units in reserve. Attacker deploys entire army.
Breakout: attacker deploys all forces in their deployment zone (middle of the board) with no reserves. Defender splits their force in two, deploys on either side of the attacker. The defender deploys their Elites units last, and have freedom over where they are placed so long as they are at least 18" away from any enemy unit. This mission gives Elites a bit more flexibility to punish deployment decisions by the attacker.

As a little bonus, Cities of Death missions from 4th edition:
Firesweep: players alternate deploying units to the board, but they have to deploy their units in the following order- Troops, Heavy support, Elites, HQ, Fast attack (Troops and Heavy support swap in this mission compared to the standard ones above).
High Ground: as above.
Domination: as above.
Maximum Attrition: as above.
Urban Assault: as above.

Hit and Fade FOC:

Special missions (use the standard FOC except the last one):
The Gauntlet: defender can only deploy Troops, HQ, and Heavy support, others in reserve. Attacker moves onto board in first turn (note this prevents most heavy weapons from firing in the first turn).
Total Devastation: players alternate deploying units to the board, but they have to deploy their units in the following order- Troops, Heavy support, Elites, HQ, Fast attack (Troops and Heavy support swap in this mission compared to the rulebook standard missions).
Relief Force: defender deploys Troops, other unit types are in reserve. Attacker deploys entire army.
Grand Assault: no specific unit restrictions, all units from both sides are deployed. This is very much a set piece battle.
Thunder Run: defender has no reserves, all units deployed. No specific unit type restrictions. Attacker can use reserves.
Assassination (uses the hit and fade FOC): defender deploys only compulsory units (a HQ, which is the mission target, and 3 Troops), other units in reserve. Attacker deploys Fast attack and Elites, other units in reserve.

There were also some missions tucked away in codices in 3rd and a few in Chapter Approved (using the standard FOC if not otherwise specified), not an exhaustive list:
Army of Death (Chapter Approved): no unit role restrictions, all units deploy onto the board.
Assassins (Chapter Approved): defender must deploy HQ, and Fast attack must be in reserve, other units can be deployed or in reserves. Attacker deploys entire force.
Battle at the Camp (Chapter Approved): this is a complicated 3-way fight between 3 erstwhile allies. Unit FOC role is important but I can't be bothered to explain it here...
Capture the Hulk (Chapter Approved): essentially an early version of what later became known as zones mortalis, so largely restricted to infantry and walkers. Units are otherwise deployed as per the standard missions above.
Carnage (Chapter Approved): as per standard missions above, except there are up to 4 players rather than just 2.
Dawn Assault (Chapter Approved): as per standard missions above
Planetfall (Space Marine codex): defender uses hidden set up, all Space Marines deploy via deep strike on the first turn (will affect heavy weapons use for most units).
Hostage Situation (Tau codex): Tau deploys entire army via deep strike on the first turn (will affect heavy weapons for some units, although a lot of Tau heavy weapons are on platforms that can move and fire). The other player has all units in reserves and moves on as normal (only units with the deep strike rule can deepstrike).
Frontal Assault (Blood Angels codex, uses the battles FOC and is supposed to be their version of Meat Grinder): defender deploys first, Blood Angels second. Only Blood Angels units that can deep strike can be held in reserve, no defender reserves. No unit type restrictions.
Tomb Raid (Necrons codex, uses the raids FOC): attacker deploys entire force. Infantry without bikes, jump packs, or transports can deploy a bit closer to the objective. Defender (Necrons) are all in reserve and move on from the board edges.
Slave Raid (Dark Eldar codex): defender can deploy Troops and up to one non-Troops unit of their choice, other units are in reserve. Dark Eldar deploy entire army.
Defend the Shrine (Witch Hunters codex, uses the raids FOC): defender (Witch Hunters) deploys one Troops and one Heavy support choice around shrine and one HQ choice in the shrine, other units in reserve. Attacker deploys in two forces either side of the defender, no unit type restrictions.
Stop the Ritual (Daemonhunters codex, uses the raids FOC): sentry deployment, but no unit type restrictions beyond this.
Terminate the Daemonvessel (Daemonhunters codex, uses the raids FOC): defender deploys one Elites choice, one Heavy support choice, and two Troops choices, and one character (the daemonvessel for the mission) deploys in turn one; other units are in reserve. Attacker moves on from a table edge.
Assassination (Assassins codex, different to the Cities of Death mission above): both players deploy armies without unit type restrictions.
Death by Moonlight (Dark Angels codex, this is a "historical scenario" more than a mission type, uses the breakthrough FOC): the Dark Angels deploy on a ridge, the Orks deploy any infantry on the board with vehicles, bikes, boarboyz, dreadnoughts (deff dreads in later editions) and support weapons entering the board in the first turn.

In addition, as previously mentioned, an Eldar Wild Riders force always uses the following FOC, which can interact very poorly with some missions above if they are forced into them:


Note that several of the missions above also have the Sustained Assault rule for one of the players- this allows Troops units to be recycled, except vehicles. Generally speaking, the scenarios above highlight how Troops options are what a given faction has widespread access to and can be used for tasks like holding the line, basic patrols into no-mans-land, and as replaceable bodies in sustained assaults. The more specialised units are in shorter supply but can be husbanded for attacks and raids or rushed in as counter-attacks to save the beleaguered Troops units. I think, as a system, this holds a lot of lore validity and also works for balance purposes as pointed out above, but encouraging units that can cope with a wide variety of deployment and mission mechanisms.

This system started degrading in 4th with FOC swapping becoming widespread, and essentially collapsed in 5th with the paucity of mission types in the main rulebook.

Edit: blimey, including Combat Patrol (which I didn't mention above), that is 45 missions! I know I've missed some too, like the missions from the Armageddon global campaign of which there are at least five for 40k.

The idea was to have trade offs for those lists, and still to have your army have a structure rather than being a free for all. I sort of agree that it didn't always work.

People are always going to have different views on what is appropriate for armies in a wargame. Probably the only way to be completely happy is to do it all yourself.

A.T. wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Iron Warriors could take 4 Heavy support slots, not 7+? How are you getting more than twice other forces without multiple detachments?

Obliterators were mis-slotted heavy support units.

That said 4e marines could take devastators in elite slots which I always thought was rather missing the point of having an FoC in the first place.

I can sort of see the argument with Obliterators, but they are very versatile units that are essentially beefy Terminators. Versatility is usually a hallmark of Elite units and I can see why they ended up there, especially when looking at the unit role interactions in the missions above. Obliterators being able to deep strike alone makes them more mobile than most Heavy support style units in the Chaos roster.

From a game balance perspective Iron Warriors losing the 0-1 restriction on Obliterators as well as gaining an extra HS slot does equal a lot of firepower, so probably they should have not removed the breaks so hard. Perhaps even 0-2 for Obliterators would have been enough.

 Tyran wrote:
If you are hoping there if a fluffy list that allows you to bypass the FOC, it makes you wonder why you need the FOC in the first place.

I think there are a few nuances inbetween "I would like to take more of x, because there is some fluff blurb that says some armies form their core with it" and "take whatever you want, but not more than 3 of the same".

It helps with world building/immersion as well as creating design space if there is a default guideline that everybody follows, while providing notable exceptions.

A really good example of this is the first White Scars army list in 3rd edition. You can play an all biker army and even get some additional wargear on top, but you have a limitation of (iirc) 5 man as the minimum size for troop bikes. I think infantry had to get a transport as well, but my memory is fuzzy on that part.

A bad example, but one that follows more closely your line of thought of "why bother with a FOC at all", would be SM Captains on bike in 5th edition. "Your bikes are now even better if you give your melee beatstick the option to be fast as well".

I understand what folks are saying with regard to some missions in 3rd making the force org work but doesn't that kind of not prove the point that it's not actually needed?

If force org only works as a balancing factor if changes are made to the standard chart depending on the mission, then why does a force org chart need to be a thing?
Army and unit restrictions can still be implemented without a chart telling you how many bikes or tanks you can take in a list.

On the other hand, the force org can allow for interesting ways in army building such as with Solar Auxilia in HH with Tercios or for you 40k types Guard platoons.
But even then Tercios are more than just taking multiple units in one slot, they have different interactions between those units and other special rules or wargear all of which would still work without a force org.

40k isn't a historical game that follows real examples of military units and while there are examples such as Astartes Companies or T'au Cadres, there are also as many exceptions to those examples with Chapters like the Dark Angels or White Scars with Biker Companies, or Guard where playing by the background would result in players not being able to use units from their army due to the split nature of Regiments.

There's also the imbalance between choices in armies themselves. Some armies have six Battleline/Troop choices while others have two. Some have more Hero choices than they do other units in the Codex while others struggle not to bring duplicates.
What good is a force org restricting the number of Heroes a player can take if they only have two generic options anyway while another army has special rules that allow the force org to be bypassed?

When 40k was much smaller and didn't have the range of units and armies it does now force org worked to a degree but times have changed and force org is just something that doesn't work with modern 40k.

 Gert wrote:
There's also the imbalance between choices in armies themselves. Some armies have six Battleline/Troop choices while others have two. Some have more Hero choices than they do other units in the Codex while others struggle not to bring duplicates.
What good is a force org restricting the number of Heroes a player can take if they only have two generic options anyway while another army has special rules that allow the force org to be bypassed?

When 40k was much smaller and didn't have the range of units and armies it does now force org worked to a degree but times have changed and force org is just something that doesn't work with modern 40k.

I have to disagree with that statement. While not following official rules, we do use all modern units alongside the classic FOC. It fits for Space Marines with their dozens of units just as well as it does for GSC. One thing we do is to allow 1 of each "Elite" character models to be taken for each regular HQ selection. This mimics older codizes where you were allowed to bring a Command Squad for your HQ without taking up any kiind of slot. So for each Captain you may take 1 Apothecary, 1 Ancient, 1 Techmarine and so on.

 Gert wrote:
I understand what folks are saying with regard to some missions in 3rd making the force org work but doesn't that kind of not prove the point that it's not actually needed?

If force org only works as a balancing factor if changes are made to the standard chart depending on the mission, then why does a force org chart need to be a thing?
Army and unit restrictions can still be implemented without a chart telling you how many bikes or tanks you can take in a list.

On the other hand, the force org can allow for interesting ways in army building such as with Solar Auxilia in HH with Tercios or for you 40k types Guard platoons.
But even then Tercios are more than just taking multiple units in one slot, they have different interactions between those units and other special rules or wargear all of which would still work without a force org.

40k isn't a historical game that follows real examples of military units and while there are examples such as Astartes Companies or T'au Cadres, there are also as many exceptions to those examples with Chapters like the Dark Angels or White Scars with Biker Companies, or Guard where playing by the background would result in players not being able to use units from their army due to the split nature of Regiments.

I think the first thing to say is that of course the FOC isn't needed. No army composition measures are, as amply demonstrated by many new players using whatever stuff they happen to have until they start to build larger forces and/or pay more attention to the wider rules.

The FOC is a way to provide a more structured playstyle in which, at its best, armies tend to look like something in the lore whilst still providing a lot of player choice and flexibility in what units they take. It has some restrictions, partly for balance and partly for lore, not strictly either of those. The variety of missions show how forces might adapt to different scenarios and how you might expect certain types of unit to respond (basic Troops being more likely to be present when the enemy attacks, for example). This is very much just a framework, 3rd and 4th both have sections with advice on creating your own missions and FOCs to expand on this. It is intended to be narrative driven and collaborative. I think this gives it a flaw in pick-up game environments because many players never see the variety and essentially specialise their playstyle to a small subset of missions.

The current system is undoubtedly more flexible with less restrictions. Many people obviously prefer that, and I think it particularly benefits pick-up games for variety. But I think it provides less of a framework for understanding how the forces tend to fight in different scenarios and it has less-precise tools for describing how units might fit into different roles during more-narrative missions. It is harder to quickly describe how an attack bike squadron and a devastator squad might behave differently/have different availability when defending a bunker vs conducting a decapitation assault, despite both being firepower platforms in a meeting engagement.

There's also the imbalance between choices in armies themselves. Some armies have six Battleline/Troop choices while others have two. Some have more Hero choices than they do other units in the Codex while others struggle not to bring duplicates.
What good is a force org restricting the number of Heroes a player can take if they only have two generic options anyway while another army has special rules that allow the force org to be bypassed?

When 40k was much smaller and didn't have the range of units and armies it does now force org worked to a degree but times have changed and force org is just something that doesn't work with modern 40k.

I think this operates under the assumption that a force can or should use most/all of those choices. Should a force of ~20-150 soldiers have 8 leaders? There are always units that cannot be taken at 40k scale games (outside massive Apocalypse-type games), the FOC just provides a structure to how those units are selected. I see no reason the classic FOC doesn't work in general with modern unit variety, although it would be a problem with armies designed around multitudes of different characters, for example. That isn't an issue due to number of choices though.