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 Dysartes wrote:

Anyone seen anything either way about Combat Patrol remaining as a format?

I hope there will be a low points game format that actually lets you choose your units and gear. The fixed units with fixed loadouts aspect of the current version is absolutely infuriating.

 Crimson wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

Anyone seen anything either way about Combat Patrol remaining as a format?

I hope there will be a low points game format that actually lets you choose your units and gear. The fixed units with fixed loadouts aspect of the current version is absolutely infuriating.

It has its advantages.

One perk of fixed CPs is that (in theory) they are all roughly balanced. So you can throw down a game against any other and should have a decent game. This is great for pick up games when you don’t know your opponent.

40k has always been best when everyone is on the same page. If you don’t know ahead of time who you are playing, you can’t bring an appropriate OpFor. How competitive are they? What kind of units/army do they have? Everyone has the most fun if it’s close. You do not want to bring a tight tuned list vs. someone’s random collection of minis, even if the points are equal.

CP levels that all out.

That said, for escalation leagues or known groups, having a rule set that scales down is just as important as one that scales up.

My big concern now is if you can take three detachments, but it is all one army, that means you could have 18 strats. We saw in 9th that many strats can be a problem. All the new detachments seem to have the strats focus on particular units, but if you can just generally apply the strats, that is a lot of specific strats to remember and increase "gotcha" moments. I like the idea of multiple detachments in a single army but worry it is going to get out of hand with stacking rules and strats pretty quickly.

Current rumour is 2 strats per detachment point. So the 1-cost ones only have 2 strats.

 xeen wrote:
My big concern now is if you can take three detachments, but it is all one army, that means you could have 18 strats. We saw in 9th that many strats can be a problem. All the new detachments seem to have the strats focus on particular units, but if you can just generally apply the strats, that is a lot of specific strats to remember and increase "gotcha" moments. I like the idea of multiple detachments in a single army but worry it is going to get out of hand with stacking rules and strats pretty quickly.

It doesn't appear the 1 point detachments have a large number of strats. The Librarius notably has none but instead has 5 Enhancements to pick from.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

Anyone seen anything either way about Combat Patrol remaining as a format?

I hope there will be a low points game format that actually lets you choose your units and gear. The fixed units with fixed loadouts aspect of the current version is absolutely infuriating.

It has its advantages.

One perk of fixed CPs is that (in theory) they are all roughly balanced. So you can throw down a game against any other and should have a decent game. This is great for pick up games when you don’t know your opponent.

40k has always been best when everyone is on the same page. If you don’t know ahead of time who you are playing, you can’t bring an appropriate OpFor. How competitive are they? What kind of units/army do they have? Everyone has the most fun if it’s close. You do not want to bring a tight tuned list vs. someone’s random collection of minis, even if the points are equal.

CP levels that all out.

That said, for escalation leagues or known groups, having a rule set that scales down is just as important as one that scales up.

In theory, Combat Patrol should be the format for 40k tournament play - show your skill with a fixed list.

 Nevelon wrote:


One perk of fixed CPs is that (in theory) they are all roughly balanced. So you can throw down a game against any other and should have a decent game. This is great for pick up games when you don’t know your opponent.

But that is obvious BS though. Do you genuinely think that GW decides what they put in their CP boxes based on whether they will be balanced against other CP boxes? Because of course they don't.

Notably, Spearhead does work in Age of Sigmar, but that is because... GW tries to make it work.

It unfortunately also has the problem of fixed lists (so I never liked it), but at least GW releases new stuff for it and tinkers with it to try and make it all come together. Units even have different datasheets for Spearhead so they can rework stuff that won't work in the format.

Meanwhile for Combat Patrol they barely even tried. It's like they took it for granted and when that didn't work they gave up.

I think part of it is that Spearhead has to work because from what we can tell AoS might be under-performing to GW's target. That doesn't mean its doing badly, just not as good as the think it should for their investment in it.

We can see this with things like launch editions selling slower than 40K (based on amount left on shelves after the launch period).

So I'd wager however GW works internally; the system wants Spearhead to REALLY work to help grow AoS.

Meanwhile in 40K the can be a bit more free and lax because in the end 40K (esp marines) is still selling like crazy. Either they are trying new more risky ideas with it or don't feel pressured in the same way to the Spearhead takes the lions share of internal testing and adjustment/polish.




It's hard to say because this is also the firm that changes the entire rules system every 3 years

 Crimson wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:


One perk of fixed CPs is that (in theory) they are all roughly balanced. So you can throw down a game against any other and should have a decent game. This is great for pick up games when you don’t know your opponent.

But that is obvious BS though. Do you genuinely think that GW decides what they put in their CP boxes based on whether they will be balanced against other CP boxes? Because of course they don't.

I did say “in theory”

They do tweak the CP unit rules vs. the main 40k rules to help it a little. The intent of the format is balanced out of the box play. Execution is a little lacking.

Spearhead is pretty good. Little sad that we didn’t see the trappings of that in the 40k launch box. Of well.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Notably, Spearhead does work in Age of Sigmar, but that is because... GW tries to make it work.

It unfortunately also has the problem of fixed lists (so I never liked it), but at least GW releases new stuff for it and tinkers with it to try and make it all come together. Units even have different datasheets for Spearhead so they can rework stuff that won't work in the format.

Meanwhile for Combat Patrol they barely even tried. It's like they took it for granted and when that didn't work they gave up.

I have genuinely never seen or heard of any one playing combat patrol outside of youtube streams. Did anyone here ever give it more than a try?

These things can be highly variable on your local group. Eg if your local group is all people with established armies; few new people and people with time to do full 1-2K games regularly then there might well be no pressure for combat patrol.


Meanwhile groups that have lots of new people (esp younger ones); which have oldies with more limited time and so forth might well have the opposite of way more combat patrol and fewer large scale games. Since then there's more pressure on having smaller model count; smaller purchase and faster format games.

Even then some groups will focus more on escalation/growth campaigns where newbies are encouraged into something like crusade or a custom campaign where its a simple escalation of points/models over time.

 Nevelon wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
That strikes me as an easy way to break the game wide open with unintended combinations.

I don’t trust to GW devs to balance that many moving parts.

Flashbacks to superfriend ally lists.

I honestly think once any proportion of the player base as is needed can stop viewing warhammer as a balance striving competitive sport and stop expecting it from the company, the healthier the game will be once it's accepted as the mess around it is.

I know we will never get true balance. What I hope for is enough internal/external balance that people can play a game and not have to worry about if they are sabotaging their army with trap pics or must-haves.

Good balance helps both casual and tournament players.

Well, if they're worrying about wether or not they've sabotaged their army via a trap pick? That's a good thing. It means they're learning to read & apply the rules.
The next step is worrying about this before buying/building/painting expensive models....
Makes them better players & applies to all games, not just GW stuff.

I think if GW gave Combat Patrol the same attention as they give Spearhead in AoS it would do a lot better. Maybe a special book and some bespoke terrain/maps for it like Spearhead.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Notably, Spearhead does work in Age of Sigmar, but that is because... GW tries to make it work.

It unfortunately also has the problem of fixed lists (so I never liked it), but at least GW releases new stuff for it and tinkers with it to try and make it all come together. Units even have different datasheets for Spearhead so they can rework stuff that won't work in the format.

Meanwhile for Combat Patrol they barely even tried. It's like they took it for granted and when that didn't work they gave up.

I have genuinely never seen or heard of any one playing combat patrol outside of youtube streams. Did anyone here ever give it more than a try?

2 years ago the shop ran a CP league. It fizzled out quickly. 5 or 6 weeks.
Veteran players did not appreciate the fixed lists nor the altered unit rules.
New players quickly learned that all CPs were not equals.... And that the vets new wich was wich.
By the end nobody thought it was a good idea to teach/learn dumbed down/altered rules. It wasn't too bad for us vets as we already have multiple 40k editions rolling around in our memories.
But the new players? Those that started fresh with CP? It made transitioning to the
"real game" harder. More than a few had the opinion that they wish theyd just learned the proper rules from the get go.

In addition? To play the shop mandated that you actually had to buy the CP NIB. So most people ended up with at least some models that they didn't want & would not have bought otherwise.

The CP experiment was never run again.

Combat Patrol has one purpose and one purpose only;

The GW rep can get Timmy jumping for joy at the intro game, then turn to Mum/Dad and say "this box here gets you everything you need to start, it even comes with some special rules for playing this specific box"
The fact that after two games Timmy thinks "hmm this doesn't work so well, and everyone else is playing 'proper' games, if I want to keep playing I need to buy four more boxes..." is a feature not a bug. 40k easily has the weight of players that that carries a lot of weight.

I can imagine AoS gets more effort put into making Spearhead work because it's a smaller and less popular game, it doesn't have as much "pull" into the larger games that 40k does. GW is probably at much more risk that Timmy just shrugs at that point and goes back to playing Fortnite or whatever.

It's not just Timmy.

Part of the big hike in their sales over the last decade is GW convincing more players to start their 2nd, 3rd, 4th (etc) faction collection. Combat patrol (and battleforce) boxes are the foundation of that.

For the completely uninitiated, how does Spearhead "work" in a way Combat Patrol "doesn't?"

Not sure there's any evidence given GW's success, but in some respects I think the Start Collecting boxes were better than Combat Patrol because with an FLGS discount it was about £45. Which isn't a trivial amount of money - but isn't that expensive either. I bought far too many over the years due to being in a store and thinking "I've not bought anything for 3 months, go on then, time to fail at collecting a new army".

I just can't do the same for £85~ boxes even if there's been quite a bit of inflation in 10 years.

Tyel wrote:
For the completely uninitiated, how does Spearhead "work" in a way Combat Patrol "doesn't?"

Not sure there's any evidence given GW's success, but in some respects I think the Start Collecting boxes were better than Combat Patrol because with an FLGS discount it was about £45. Which isn't a trivial amount of money - but isn't that expensive either. I bought far too many over the years due to being in a store and thinking "I've not bought anything for 3 months, go on then, time to fail at collecting a new army".

I just can't do the same for £85~ boxes even if there's been quite a bit of inflation in 10 years.

There's something irrational about boxed bundles of things, even if they cost the same as getting things separated also if you put a special name to those bundles you can even sell them for more. Its pretty much across most retail.
GW knows this and thats why we never seen so many bundles per month as we see now.

Tyel wrote:
For the completely uninitiated, how does Spearhead "work" in a way Combat Patrol "doesn't?"

Not sure there's any evidence given GW's success, but in some respects I think the Start Collecting boxes were better than Combat Patrol because with an FLGS discount it was about £45. Which isn't a trivial amount of money - but isn't that expensive either. I bought far too many over the years due to being in a store and thinking "I've not bought anything for 3 months, go on then, time to fail at collecting a new army".

I just can't do the same for £85~ boxes even if there's been quite a bit of inflation in 10 years.

As an intro game format it’s better. Combat patrol you can see all sorts of stuff, but spearhead leaves the more complex stuff aside. There may be mages and priests, but they take advantage of the bespoke scrolls to keep things simple. CP has most of the complexity of full 40k.

The card decks make it replayable. The turn based twists, and the maelstom-esque objective cards add a lot of flow to the game. The mechanic of using the cards to either score, or for buffs is a nice tactical twist.

The spearhead boxes feel more coherent the. The 40k ones? Subjective opinion granted.

Just a few quick thoughts.

The AoS boxes are also generally better value (in terms of discount) than the 40K ones.

GW doesn't really have to put a lot of effort into selling 40K the same way - it seems to just sell like crazy no matter what these days.

I think Combat Patrol as a special game mode designed to give a good game for box vs box is a great idea, but I think the Combat Patrols themselves are not as good as the Start Collecting boxes. I've only bought two Combat Patrols (Dark Eldar and Ad Mech) and to be honest I regret the Ad Mech one because I just feel it was still too expensive even with the discount.

 Da Boss wrote:
The AoS boxes are also generally better value (in terms of discount) than the 40K ones.

GW doesn't really have to put a lot of effort into selling 40K the same way - it seems to just sell like crazy no matter what these days.

I think Combat Patrol as a special game mode designed to give a good game for box vs box is a great idea, but I think the Combat Patrols themselves are not as good as the Start Collecting boxes. I've only bought two Combat Patrols (Dark Eldar and Ad Mech) and to be honest I regret the Ad Mech one because I just feel it was still too expensive even with the discount.

I really liked the Start collecting sets it was just about the right price point for that sort of impulse purchase into a new army.
Im surprised GW still tries to make some rules for these because like you say I'm pretty sure they would sell just on the back of being a boxed set.

I haven't counted how many box sets GW released this year overall, but I bet it's a silly number. The fact that these boxes once sold out they never get back, makes people jump on them immediately.

I too miss the Start Collecting sets, but I don't think it's a surprise they were phased out. They were "too" good a deal, introduced when GW was doing worse overall. GW of today has no need to offer such an attractive value proposition, they're selling to capacity anyway.

Combat Patrols, being usable forces out the box offer a different flavour of value to Start Collecting.

Some Start Collecting were ace for adding big show pieces to your collection. Others were just a straight saving on army essentials. But I’m not sure any produced a usable force.

So, for getting people into the hobby? Combat Patrols/Spearheads are better focussed.

Of course, it would be nice if CP/SH sets were sold alongside a Start Collecting style expansion set. Something to help you start building toward a “proper” army.

I do think the most recent wave of Combat Patrols have been designed more around making a game mode more similar to Spearhead. They've normalized a lot of what's in them and taken out a lot of the pieces like a Redemptor that just don't interact well with the majority of models in the kit. I've assumed that was what they've been prepping to do at least.

I definitely see people all the time that buy in to just Combat Patrols. They tend to either buy further into the game or drop out entirely, but there's no doubt that its a game model that gets feet in doors.

My only issue with Combat Patrols is there needs to be a small printed out book available for GW/FLGS to use.

I've seen eyes bleeding over attempts at trying to read rules on a phone.

GW used to make a small handy rulebook they included in the starter box. They were extremely handy and I'd always try to buy one separated to have.

They stopped doing that with 8th edition, I assume because a lot of people did the same and they weren't getting many sales of the big, expensive, and highly marked up big rule book.

That was the last time I ever bought a proper rulebook, after that I started looking for the digital books to print and bind myself into little pocket rulebooks.
The big hardback books are waaaay too impractical to be carrying around between games.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
My only issue with Combat Patrols is there needs to be a small printed out book available for GW/FLGS to use.

I've seen eyes bleeding over attempts at trying to read rules on a phone.

They should be available online to download PDFs.

 Jidmah wrote:
I have genuinely never seen or heard of any one playing combat patrol outside of youtube streams. Did anyone here ever give it more than a try?

No. Even a cursory examination showed it was a dumb set of lists. We did do 500 points for a while until a few players natural powergaming instincts became too hard to suppress.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Some Start Collecting were ace for adding big show pieces to your collection. Others were just a straight saving on army essentials. But I’m not sure any produced a usable force.

Some absolutely did. As I recall the Guard one was excellent, and the Tzeentch Daemons one too. They were well-rounded but at the same something you could get multiple boxes of. S+ tier boxes, really. I got two Tzeentch boxes and was very happy I did, got one Khorne and one Slaanesh box, and sadly no Nurgle box (as it was the first one to drop, replaced by the sadly worse Maggotkin of Nurgle Vanguard box).