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Hey everyone! I have a question for those who play the current edition of 40k about some of the 11th edition rules previews…specifically about the concept of now being able to run multiple detachments in 11th edition.

I haven’t played 40k for real since 6th/7th edition, and one of the main things that drove me out of the game were the ‘formations’ they had back then, and the bonus abilities those formations handed out (just to the units from those formations). What irked me about that was that you could have two of the exact same model in your force (say, 2 Rhinos, for example) and 1 of those Rhinos could have a bonus special rule for being part of a formation. Why did that irk me, you might ask? Because then it was suddenly up to the opponent to remember throughout the game which particular Rhinos had the magical special ability assigned to it just for being taken as part of a formation.

While I never even tried a game of 10th edition, the simplified ‘2 pages of rules’ for each detachment seemed pretty good to me, and my understanding was that you essentially had to pick 1 detachment for your entire force (let me know if I’m incorrect on this).

Reading the 11th edition rules previews, I noticed that now you’ll be able to take multiple detachments in a single force now. My question to those of you who are well versed in 10th edition rules (and have read all the 11th edition previews) is:

Do you think in 11th edition, if a player takes multiple detachments for their force we could be back to a situation where two identical models in the same force can now have different special rules based upon which detachment they are taken from? If that is the case, it wouldn’t it seem like a big step backwards towards making it easy for the opposing player to keep track of which units benefit from which special rules in a force?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Yep.

In theory, you're incentivized to put all the units that will benefit from a detachment in that specific detachment, but it's plausible that we'll see units that could benefit from multiple being spread between them.

Either way, you have to keep track of which unit is in which detachment to know what set of passive buffs it's under, but also which stratagems it has access to. Plus there are enhancements applied to specific models/units, so you have to remember which units have those.

I think it's going to be messy. Maybe not as messy as 9th got to be, but definitely more to keep track of than 10th.

Edit: I'm wrong about putting specific units in specific detachments, seems they're all army-wide, so you'll just have to track which units receive which buffs and abilities.

While I never even tried a game of 10th edition, the simplified ‘2 pages of rules’ for each detachment seemed pretty good to me, and my understanding was that you essentially had to pick 1 detachment for your entire force (let me know if I’m incorrect on this).

You are correct about this.

Do you think in 11th edition, if a player takes multiple detachments for their force we could be back to a situation where two identical models in the same force can now have different special rules based upon which detachment they are taken from? If that is the case, it wouldn’t it seem like a big step backwards towards making it easy for the opposing player to keep track of which units benefit from which special rules in a force?

From what I can tell individual units are not part of a detachment who then gain the rules from that detachment but that the rules from each detachment will only effect certain units based on their keywords.
For example the Devotees of Destruction detachement said:

Friendly HAVOCS/OBLITERATORS units’ ranged attacks have [HEAVY].

So only units with the Havocs or Obliterators keywords would gain this special rule.
They have said that each of the previewed detachments are worth 1 point so I assume the more broad ones will be worth 2-3 so for example if a Chaos SM army takes the Devotees of Destruction detachement and one of the more broad ones, say for example one that effects all infantry units, all you would need to remember is that all infantry has the broad rule and only the Havocs and Obliterators would have both.

I don’t think there has been a definitive word.

None of the rules we’ve seen so far explicitly say “models in this detachment gain xx”. There could be two reasons for that. One is that in the core rules there is a explicit line (that we haven’t seen yet) that makes rules only apply to units taken as part of a detachment, so they don’t need to write it on every one. The other option is that your army rules are going to be the sum of your (up to 3) detachments, where every rule will apply to everything that matches it’s keywords and descriptions.

As far as I know we don’t have a solid answer at this time.

Which leads 2 likely outcomes.
One is the issue that plagued formations, where 2 identical units have different rules because they were grouped in different structures.
The other is a return of layered rules and unintended consequences where multiple buffs have the potential to wombo-combo break the game.

Or a 3rd option I don’t see.

 Nevelon wrote:
I don’t think there has been a definitive word.

None of the rules we’ve seen so far explicitly say “models in this detachment gain xx”. There could be two reasons for that. One is that in the core rules there is a explicit line (that we haven’t seen yet) that makes rules only apply to units taken as part of a detachment, so they don’t need to write it on every one. The other option is that your army rules are going to be the sum of your (up to 3) detachments, where every rule will apply to everything that matches it’s keywords and descriptions.

As far as I know we don’t have a solid answer at this time.

Which leads 2 likely outcomes.
One is the issue that plagued formations, where 2 identical units have different rules because they were grouped in different structures.
The other is a return of layered rules and unintended consequences where multiple buffs have the potential to wombo-combo break the game.

Or a 3rd option I don’t see.

In this article, https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/95fucn12/building-an-army-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/, there is a line that reads; You'll still choose your army from your Codex, in much the same way as you do now. The Detachments will then give rules that will apply to your whole army, though certain Detachments and rules may only affect certain units within it.

This makes me think it is the one where the army rules is the sum of your detachments with keywords dictating which units are effected. So I see a lot of theory crafting and potentially emergency patches in the future.

 KingGarland wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I don’t think there has been a definitive word.

None of the rules we’ve seen so far explicitly say “models in this detachment gain xx”. There could be two reasons for that. One is that in the core rules there is a explicit line (that we haven’t seen yet) that makes rules only apply to units taken as part of a detachment, so they don’t need to write it on every one. The other option is that your army rules are going to be the sum of your (up to 3) detachments, where every rule will apply to everything that matches it’s keywords and descriptions.

As far as I know we don’t have a solid answer at this time.

Which leads 2 likely outcomes.
One is the issue that plagued formations, where 2 identical units have different rules because they were grouped in different structures.
The other is a return of layered rules and unintended consequences where multiple buffs have the potential to wombo-combo break the game.

Or a 3rd option I don’t see.

In this article, https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/95fucn12/building-an-army-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/, there is a line that reads; You'll still choose your army from your Codex, in much the same way as you do now. The Detachments will then give rules that will apply to your whole army, though certain Detachments and rules may only affect certain units within it.

This makes me think it is the one where the army rules is the sum of your detachments with keywords dictating which units are effected. So I see a lot of theory crafting and potentially emergency patches in the future.

Ok, that does skew things away from having to worry about who’s from what detachment. Now GW just needs to work on balance. Thanks for the link.

There are going to be so many errata and nerfs. I suspect day one. Once we get the mostly complete leaks pre-launch, the mathhammer people should be able to get some broken combos off the bat.

While I’m getting bad 6/7th flashbacks, GW is much more agile in getting fixes out the door. Prior editions didn’t fix things so much, but relied on codex creep . Sure, your army might be busted powerful, but wait for the next guy to put you in your place.

The detachment point cost system gives them some flexibility in controlling what can be combo with what.

 Tyran wrote:
The detachment point cost system gives them some flexibility in controlling what can be combo with what.

We've also seen some with "This detachment is mutually exclusive with other detachments that have the same Keyword."

Yeah, to me all the previews read as a 'detachment buffet'; you pay the detachment points for specific 'servings', and they're all smushed together in one big plate at the end that covers your whole army. If anything, it reminds me of the old Guard Doctrine rules, just with a separate points pool instead.

Is it likely to be perfectly balanced? No, but, like...nothing GW does ever is. Regular detachments certainly aren't, a little customization won't set the system on fire.

Other posters have summarized it well.

Your army is no longer divided in detachments. 11th edition Detachments are just "build your own chapter" rules where you can mix and match unit buffs to get your personalized chaper/hive fleet/ork clan/regiment/whatever. You get 3 detachment points and can spend them in any way you like. All previewed detachments are 1DP, the current detachments are mostly 2DP.

In some cases, GW seems to be fine with units benefitting from multiple detachment rules. For example you pick both Taktikal Brigade and More Dakka!, a unit of boyz would both gain Listen 'ere (perform action after advancing) as well as assault weapons and conditional sustained hits.

In other cases, they added weird keywords to prevent units from doubling up on powerful abilities.

Either way, all units in your army will have the same detachment rules applied to them at all times. Detachments do bring upgrades now though, so if you decide to upgrade one squad, but no the other, you might still have identical units with different rules.

I believe that the complexity will increase from "one page of rules", but not massively so. Many of the smaller detachment have just 0-2 stratagems and focus on a very limited set of units. Playing most games will likely feel like 10th edition, but with one unit type being improved with an extra stratagem or two.

I'm not sure this customization system will actually work out in the end. Even if it ends up balanced eventually, building the right detachment will likely be "solved" six months into the edition and at that time play the same as 10th for experienced players while increasing the learning curve for less experienced players.

The detachments we've seen so far are all 1-point detachments (out of the 3 you get at 2000 points). All of them have been pretty narrowly focused on specific units, like Transports, or Sanguinary Guard. You don't need to track which detachment a unit is part of, so it's just a case of tracking all the bonuses your detachment gives you. If you're running three 1-point detachments, it's likely just going to be some units get buff A, some get buff B and some get buff C, but there's no army-wide major buff like you can get now. I think those level of buffs will be reserved for the 3-pointers.

In theory it could work well. One of the problems with detachments now is they all "cost" the same so a detachment that gives your whole army massive buffs (like Gladius) is equivalent to one that only buffs Terminators and Sternguard, for example. GSC are a good example here, where all their detachments buff specific units and they don't actually have a generic, all-rounder detachment. Now GW can produce both and have a mechanism for balancing them appropriately.

That just leave the implementation for GW to mess up...

From what I've seen so far on this, 11th rules soup seems a lot friendlier on the brain than previous rules combos like formations.

First up, all detachments affect all units, so there is no book keeping around which units are in which detachments (some detachments only affect certain units, but that is no different to 10th). You might need to print out some reference cards to have specifically your detachment rules/strats/enhancements in one place, but this is all stuff that can be done before the game so has no real impact on the flow of the game itself.

Secondly, the detachment points seems better for smaller games - locking the heavy hitter 3 point detachments out of the game at smaller scales seems like a total win for balance.

Third - while it's so rare I don't think I've ever had it happen to me in a game of 10th beyond command point rerolls, stacking stratagems is gone. You will likely have access to more strats in 11th (from each of your detachments), but you won't be able to wildly supercharge 1 of 2 otherwise identical units.

The only ways so far to get different rules into identical units seem to be:
* Some enhancements can now go onto non-character units
* There seems to be a general relaxation on getting 2 characters into a unit (leader character + support character designations)
So I guess there could be a route to taking a couple of nearly identical units, but stacking 2 characters (each with an enhancement) plus a non-character enhancement into one of them. This will probably get abused at every opportunity, but as you can probably only get 1 such unit in your army I wouldn't worry too much about tracking huge rules variations across your opponents entire roster.

One thing to note is that your detachment choice determines your "Force Disposition" which in turn decides what missions you can play.

So in theory you can make say a main list with a 2 point detachment, and then slot in the third one as you like to give yourself the opportunity to play Take and Hold, Disruption, Purge the Foe etc.

For competitive purposes you'd probably want to pick this first and work back - but its an option for casual games.

I appreciate the ease of use for folks who just want to play the game. It's good (from the rules/ ease of use perspective) that we don't have to trach which units belong to which detachments, and I hope it stays that way for everyone's sake.

However, for me personally, detachments are connected to the fluff and the army back story, so I personally track this stuff in my own armies. For me, the relationships between the various units in my armies are important. In my Drukhari army, for example, one of my Wych Cults is financed by and loyal to the Archon, while another Cult is financed by and loyal to a Lhamaean who works with the Archon (most of the time). In the Sisters army, the Canoness keeps the Penitent units separate from the Holy units, lest their sin contaminate their loyal Sisters.

For me, detachments were always as much a way to define the background and character of the army as rules. As another example, I know which units in my Sisters army are more loyal to the Ecclesiarchy and which are more loyal to the Inquisition.

 Insularum wrote:
So I guess there could be a route to taking a couple of nearly identical units, but stacking 2 characters (each with an enhancement) plus a non-character enhancement into one of them. This will probably get abused at every opportunity, but as you can probably only get 1 such unit in your army I wouldn't worry too much about tracking huge rules variations across your opponents entire roster.

This was already happening for armies which could double up on characters like orks, DG or necrons. GW has successfully addressed this issues by making big units more expensive than small ones, increasing the points of the character shouldering the combo or increasing the cost of the enhancement. And sometimes all of that at the same time


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Tyel wrote:
One thing to note is that your detachment choice determines your "Force Disposition" which in turn decides what missions you can play.

So in theory you can make say a main list with a 2 point detachment, and then slot in the third one as you like to give yourself the opportunity to play Take and Hold, Disruption, Purge the Foe etc.

For competitive purposes you'd probably want to pick this first and work back - but its an option for casual games.

That is assuming picking certain dispositions is so relevant to your success chance. In the beginning you might want to avoid certain dispositions because of broken combinations, but I assume GW will go after the worst offenders quickly.
I expect it to be a factor, but I doubt people would pick a 1 point detachment just to be able to play different set of missions is worth not picking a detachment which synergizes with your army.


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 PenitentJake wrote:
For me, detachments were always as much a way to define the background and character of the army as rules. As another example, I know which units in my Sisters army are more loyal to the Ecclesiarchy and which are more loyal to the Inquisition.

GW has been slapping flavorful buzzwords on their rules for ages. They have not been related to the actual lore behind that rule for a long time now.
Don't let cheap marketing spoil your fun

 Jidmah wrote:
That is assuming picking certain dispositions is so relevant to your success chance. In the beginning you might want to avoid certain dispositions because of broken combinations, but I assume GW will go after the worst offenders quickly.

I think the efficacy of this approach will come down to whether GW is able to quash overperforming combinations without making the constituent parts poor outside of that particular combo.

Which is to say that I'm less concerned about there being standout best picks- GW has no problem swinging the hammer on those in a hurry- but instead a bunch of duds and only a couple really viable options.

"Detachment" is a bit of a confusing moniker really. Force Specialisation or something similar would reduce the likelihood of confusion with detachments of 30k and older 40k editions.

In 10th its clearly meant to evoke the idea that this group of models you've brought to the table is a specific segment of your greater army/collection. It definitely loses its context when treated as multiple detachments.

Ideally this will solve itself as players start nicknaming their custom detachments. Here's my Gladius Conclave or Skylance Task Force. Throw your Boyz into a Rollin' Horde or Da Taktikal Hunt. We will absolutely flood this thing with obscure lingo.

 LunarSol wrote:
In 10th its clearly meant to evoke the idea that this group of models you've brought to the table is a specific segment of your greater army/collection. It definitely loses its context when treated as multiple detachments.

Ideally this will solve itself as players start nicknaming their custom detachments. Here's my Gladius Conclave or Skylance Task Force. Throw your Boyz into a Rollin' Horde or Da Taktikal Hunt. We will absolutely flood this thing with obscure lingo.

Flashbacks to Taudar and barkstar lists. All the fun of wacky superfriends ally list names, but just with different detachments from the same army!

Thanks, everyone! You've definitely helped me wrap my head around what these detachment rules actually look to be than what I thought at first glance.

 Ashiraya wrote:
"Detachment" is a bit of a confusing moniker really. Force Specialisation or something similar would reduce the likelihood of confusion with detachments of 30k and older 40k editions.

I agree! I think 'Force Specializations' would definitely be better at this point, but I'm imagining since the concept of these Detachment rules came from the current edition (where you only ever picked one for your entire force), and all the existing 'detachment' rules are still going to be valid options in 11th, they're kind of stuck with the term 'detachment' even though it doesn't sound like it is the best description for what these rules do anymore.

I've got a few more questions for you all (if you don't mind spending the time to answer):

From an outsider's perspective (of someone who didn't play 40k 10th edition), it seems like the goals of the detachment system were to effectively provide a number of different 'themed' faction armies all within a single codex. I'm going to guess that the problem with this system (based on this pivot for 11th edition) was:

1) Certain detachment rules were naturally a lot better than others (which is always going to be the case), which leads to only a handful of detachment ever getting used, especially in a competitive environment.

2) The detachment rules tended to be kind of hyper-focused on one element of a faction, leading to very little adaptability if you wanted to take stuff in your force that didn't vibe super hard with the detachment rules (ala 'bikes' and 'terminators', as the 11th edition previews talk about).

Is this assesment more or less correct, or am I missing some nuances?

And assuming those assessments are more or less the reason that they are changing the detachment rules for 11th edition, do you really think it will help alleviate the issues?

Obviously the 2nd issue will be greatly helped (as you'll be able to mix and match the detachment rules you want for the units you want to include in your force), but I'd imagine the first issue will roughly stay the same: people will figure out which few detachment rules work best together to provide nasty synergy and those will end up being the new 'go to' choice, no?

And again, from an outsider's perspective, it seems like the 'cost' for replacing 10th's detachment system with this new all-you-can-eat buffet sytle system will be that whatever 'theme' is provided by each detachment will be largely diluted as it is almost always getting mashed in with 1-2 other detachments in a force. Is this a concern to you guys at all, or not so much?

 yakface wrote:


Thanks, everyone! You've definitely helped me wrap my head around what these detachment rules actually look to be than what I thought at first glance.

 Ashiraya wrote:
"Detachment" is a bit of a confusing moniker really. Force Specialisation or something similar would reduce the likelihood of confusion with detachments of 30k and older 40k editions.

I agree! I think 'Force Specializations' would definitely be better at this point, but I'm imagining since the concept of these Detachment rules came from the current edition (where you only ever picked one for your entire force), and all the existing 'detachment' rules are still going to be valid options in 11th, they're kind of stuck with the term 'detachment' even though it doesn't sound like it is the best description for what these rules do anymore.

I've got a few more questions for you all (if you don't mind spending the time to answer):

From an outsider's perspective (of someone who didn't play 40k 10th edition), it seems like the goals of the detachment system were to effectively provide a number of different 'themed' faction armies all within a single codex. I'm going to guess that the problem with this system (based on this pivot for 11th edition) was:

1) Certain detachment rules were naturally a lot better than others (which is always going to be the case), which leads to only a handful of detachment ever getting used, especially in a competitive environment.

2) The detachment rules tended to be kind of hyper-focused on one element of a faction, leading to very little adaptability if you wanted to take stuff in your force that didn't vibe super hard with the detachment rules (ala 'bikes' and 'terminators', as the 11th edition previews talk about).

Is this assesment more or less correct, or am I missing some nuances?

And assuming those assessments are more or less the reason that they are changing the detachment rules for 11th edition, do you really think it will help alleviate the issues?

No. You are over thinking it. The reason for the change is simply to change things up.

You are correct that those are indeed some of the issues.

Whether it will end up being better, no one can yet say. We've not seen enough of the complete puzzle to assess what state the game will be in when all pieces are in place.

Conservatively, I would say to expect dubious balance at the very least on release (this seems the trend), but with the worst outliers being sanded down gradually after release (at least the strongest units - GW tends to focus on nerfing the strongest rather than buffing the weakest choices in the game, broadly speaking).

Regarding the theme, I do not think it is really part of the goal here. In recent years, 40k has increasingly focused on high-level tournament play, with relentless balance patches accompanied by constant releases to keep the high-level meta from becoming stale for too long. Theming, immersion and simulation therefore take the back seat (the army building changes with 10th edition almost wholly adopting 9th edition's Power Level system, for example), which is a tradeoff some players celebrate and some not, so you will have to decide for yourself where you stand.


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ccs wrote:


No. You are over thinking it. The reason for the change is simply to change things up.

At the most cynical, this is correct; GW is selling change. If the game was "perfect", or as close as GW ever could make it, GW would still then purposely worsen it just so they can sell the next edition with enough changes to make it feel different.

With that said, it's more simple than the reality. The changes, though I don't exactly agree with all of them, were not all just randomly decided. There is a line of thought going through this edition beyond change for the sake of change.

 yakface wrote:

2) The detachment rules tended to be kind of hyper-focused on one element of a faction, leading to very little adaptability if you wanted to take stuff in your force that didn't vibe super hard with the detachment rules (ala 'bikes' and 'terminators', as the 11th edition previews talk about).

Is this assesment more or less correct, or am I missing some nuances?

I don't think you're off but I think how we got here is a little more interesting. One of the important elements of the Detachment system over similar themed lists is the lack of restrictions. This means that while detachments may largely benefit one type of unit in the army, they've never stopped you from including important tech pieces like Scouts and drop troops. I think the best designed of the bunch have also had army rules that buff everything and their unique elements focused more on stratagems and enhancements so that taking one or two of the required element is largely all you can get out of those benefits anyway.

The Index detachments in 10th really excelled at this but you saw the Codex detachments struggle as they became more focused on a single unit. Often these detachments lacked key tools that made them more gimmicky strong. I think GW increasingly found designing a whole new detachment for each unit type they wanted to promote a lot more work than it was worth when the things taken away to differentiate them often meant they were dropped in favor of the generalist option.

This seems like an attempt to provide a way to blend in missing tools as needed and promote niche units without needing to redesign a whole list around just that. Whether or not it works out remains to be seen.

 yakface wrote:
1) Certain detachment rules were naturally a lot better than others (which is always going to be the case), which leads to only a handful of detachment ever getting used, especially in a competitive environment.

This heavily depended on the internal balance of a codex. For some codices (like orks) there were multiple viable detachment that regularly saw play both in casual and competitive gaming. For other, less fortunate codices, there usually really was just one or two detachment which made sense - especially those with extremely limited options.

2) The detachment rules tended to be kind of hyper-focused on one element of a faction, leading to very little adaptability if you wanted to take stuff in your force that didn't vibe super hard with the detachment rules (ala 'bikes' and 'terminators', as the 11th edition previews talk about).

Actually, each codex had at least one generalist detachment which worked for every kind of army. In many cases, it also was the most played one, because it allowed you to bring all the tools needed to win games and still have a detachment that benefits all of them.
Hyper-focused lists tend not to do well in 10th edition's missions (and probably not in 11th either), since more varied lists are more likely to be able to tackle many different opponents, terrain layouts and missions.
Hyper-focused detachments only roared their heads when the units they were buffing were overly powerful (or became that way because of the detachment), the units they were covering were very diverse (for example, aspect warriors) or when the codex was a mono-build army anyways and the detachment happened to match that build.

And assuming those assessments are more or less the reason that they are changing the detachment rules for 11th edition, do you really think it will help alleviate the issues?

Obviously the 2nd issue will be greatly helped (as you'll be able to mix and match the detachment rules you want for the units you want to include in your force), but I'd imagine the first issue will roughly stay the same: people will figure out which few detachment rules work best together to provide nasty synergy and those will end up being the new 'go to' choice, no?

It will help a bit with generalist detachments being strictly better than specific ones, but otherwise yes, probably.

And again, from an outsider's perspective, it seems like the 'cost' for replacing 10th's detachment system with this new all-you-can-eat buffet sytle system will be that whatever 'theme' is provided by each detachment will be largely diluted as it is almost always getting mashed in with 1-2 other detachments in a force. Is this a concern to you guys at all, or not so much?

I actually don't think so. Being able to slot in faster battlewagons with my speed freeks or sneaky kommadoz with a dreadmob sounds decent. Or using champions of contagion (character focused) with some sort of buff to daemon engines which I like using in combination with them.

 yakface wrote:
And again, from an outsider's perspective, it seems like the 'cost' for replacing 10th's detachment system with this new all-you-can-eat buffet sytle system will be that whatever 'theme' is provided by each detachment will be largely diluted as it is almost always getting mashed in with 1-2 other detachments in a force. Is this a concern to you guys at all, or not so much?

I think the theme will just depend on how you build your army.
For example for Tyranids, combining "Vanguard Onslaught" from the codex (You can fall back and charge while Vanguard Invader units get advance and charge) would seem to combine naturally with "Ambush Predators" (Lictor units get deepstrike, and reroll 1s to hit a character).
Leaving aside whether Vanguard Onslaught is any good - or Lictors are any good - its not really clear how this dilutes the theme of lots of vanguard organisms scuttling all over the battlefield.

If you took a "bit of everything" Sisters of Battle List, would it matter if you gave your Sacresants +1 WS & BS? Would it matter even if you ran 3 units?

Most of these 1 point detachments seem very narrow - so the theme is maintained/produced just by taking the relevant units.

In some cases I just wonder. Why release some of the detachments. So you have one for the Emperors Champion. A model you can have exactly one in your army. So the whole thing is just upgraded rules for one model. Why not just, I don't know put the rules on the unit data card, instead of wasting a detachment slot for an army?

Same thing with land speeder one. Exists only to give speeders a reaction movment, and the speeder trait to old speeders. Why not give both to the untis on their data cards.

I understand detachments to allow something like marines+X imperial thing, tyranids+GSC, chaos marines "demon kin" armies etc. But the whole detachment to buff one unit or one model, just sounds stupid. It also splits the rules for units. Because now you are not only going to have to check the stats/rules for unit X, but also the modification of it on another page/book/card.

Karol wrote:
In some cases I just wonder. Why release some of the detachments. So you have one for the Emperors Champion. A model you can have exactly one in your army. So the whole thing is just upgraded rules for one model. Why not just, I don't know put the rules on the unit data card, instead of wasting a detachment slot for an army?

Same thing with land speeder one. Exists only to give speeders a reaction movment, and the speeder trait to old speeders. Why not give both to the untis on their data cards.

I understand detachments to allow something like marines+X imperial thing, tyranids+GSC, chaos marines "demon kin" armies etc. But the whole detachment to buff one unit or one model, just sounds stupid. It also splits the rules for units. Because now you are not only going to have to check the stats/rules for unit X, but also the modification of it on another page/book/card.

Guessing here.

One of the problems with 10th’s detachments was that they were either generic, or focused on a handful of models. The broad ones had solid rules that effected everyone, but were a little light on flavor. The focused ones had tricks more tailored to the units they covered, so felt more connected to them. But if you weren’t in on the units it was supposed to cover, you could literally have none of the rules work for some units.

These one point detachments are hyper focused. They may only cover 1d3 units, but they highlight them specifically. They let the units do the kind of stuff you read about in BL books. They make them the Main Character(tm) of your army list. And because missions are being picked from among the types of detachments you have in your list, they should get a chance to do their thing. Nobody likes to watch their favorite model do nothing.

For years when people asked here about how to build a marine list, one of the things I asked is “What are your 3 favorite units, what drew you to the army?” There are as many ways to build a marine list as there are players. More probably, some of us like to mix things up all the time. This new system lets you really highlight that. Your favorite units are going to be supported and shine. They are going to be the POV characters and protagonists of the narrative.

But from a balance perspective, you can’t have have level of detail on everyone, or we are back to massive rules bloat and slow games. So we have a limited number of detachment points to spend.

I think it might be fun for narrative players to use the same army, but shuffle around the detachments, to focus their story on what’s happening and who’s critical in that fight. Nice tool to let Your Guys(tm) do cool things when they need to, but not break the game.

Karol wrote:
In some cases I just wonder. Why release some of the detachments. So you have one for the Emperors Champion. A model you can have exactly one in your army. So the whole thing is just upgraded rules for one model. Why not just, I don't know put the rules on the unit data card, instead of wasting a detachment slot for an army?

Same thing with land speeder one. Exists only to give speeders a reaction movment, and the speeder trait to old speeders. Why not give both to the untis on their data cards.

I understand detachments to allow something like marines+X imperial thing, tyranids+GSC, chaos marines "demon kin" armies etc. But the whole detachment to buff one unit or one model, just sounds stupid. It also splits the rules for units. Because now you are not only going to have to check the stats/rules for unit X, but also the modification of it on another page/book/card.

The 1-point detachments are all giving moderate buffs to a small number of units. For something like the speeders, they're designed as a choice for people taking 2+ of those, where you might want to upgrade them for a 1DP. There's a point where having enough of a unit takes you above the threshold for spending a DP on making them better, which is a good element of choice for players. I think the Emperor's Champion one shows they can also play about with this to provide a relatively greater buff for 1DP, but only for a single model, so there are multiple ways to think about and balance the detachments.

I also think there's real potential to things like the Emperor's Champion detachment to help inject some Black Templar flavor into things like Gladius.