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One of the more heated topics in 40k homebrew is the nature of formations, whether they need point costs, etc. Personally, I disagree with point costs for formations, but I also disagree with the idea that all formations should have a mandatory tax. Look at pretty much every non-Gorepack Daemonkin formation as an example of a formation that is "all tax, no benefit" and you'll see what I mean.

My view is that if a formation doesn't have a noticeable tax or point-cost of entry, it should have some notable drawback or restriction that otherwise prevents the units in the formation from being an auto-include over just taking said units in a CAD. YMMV of course, but certain thoughts include:

Heralds Anarchic: The Heralds Anarchic may only generate powers from the Lore of Change, and the extra Warp Charge they generate may only be used within their formation. (No using them as a Magnus Battery, or for cheap Summon vectors).

Canoptek Harvest: The Wraiths, Scarabs, and Spyders must form a single unit, with the Spyder gaining the Character sub-type. (This prevents other characters from joining them and makes them slower, but it also makes the Spyder harder to single out from range.)

Aspect Host: An Aspect Host may not take more than one of the same type of Aspect Warrior unit; for instance, it may take 1 unit of Scorpions, 1 of Banshees, and 1 of Dark Reapers, but could not take 2 units of Warp Spiders and 1 of Swooping Hawks. The +1 BS bonus does not apply to dedicated transports. (You'll have to work a little harder to spam Warp Spiders).

How else would you tweak formations, either buffing horrid ones (Khorne's Bloodstorm, etc), or putting non-tax/non-point cost drawbacks on the super-formations?

I like both changes to the Aspect Host & Canoptek Harvest. Like, a lot actually. Forcing the Aspect host to diversify is brilliant. I might add that each unit can choose +1BS or +1WS, rather than the whole formation choosing the same. This way, you can take both melee & ranged units without feeling like some units aren't really benefitting.
The Harvest being 1 unit is really nice, but it actually makes the Spyder faster (via conga line) and the Scarabs more durable (majority T), so I'm not sure it that is a nerf or a buff.
It might also make the Wraiths tougher. If you have 3 Wraiths (T5), 3 Scarabs (T3) and 1 Spyder (T6), there is not majority T, making the unit T6. I still like the idea though

But the change to the Heralds Anarchic makes them kinda garbage. You can achieve what they would now do by just spamming Brimstones ....for much cheaper. I like the idea of making their WC only available to them though. Maybe 1 Heralrd has to generate from Change, 1 from Divination, 1 from Malefic. Any additional Heralds may choose as normal.



Riptide WIng: For every Riptide, you must purchase 2 Shielded Missile drones. It's not cheap, adds little to them, and creates the chance to make them run away if a Drone gets killed.
It's really the best "tax" you can give them

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IIRC, the Spyder does not have Fleet, so that would be a drawback for the merged unit as a whole. The Scarabs would grant the whole unit Stealth (which matters relatively little due to the Scarabs getting 3++), but would mostly be there as bullet-catchers. The conga-line would be interesting nonetheless.

I like the "Shielded Missile Drone" restriction. Perhaps a restriction against the EWO would also be in place (the Riptides are a "vanguard" rather than "defensive" and all)?

One thought I had contemplated for Heralds was "No Herald may take the same combination of upgrades", similar to how the 3rd ed Orks could take a Mekboy escort for a Big Mek. So the more Heralds you took, the more awkward the formation got. However, that got a bit kooky after awhile. Another thought could be to restrict them to Lore of Change, but add a system where they add +1 strength to Warpflame attacks for each Soulblaze token that is on an enemy unit, or something funky like that.

You can't balance formations until units are balanced.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
IIRC, the Spyder does not have Fleet, so that would be a drawback for the merged unit as a whole. The Scarabs would grant the whole unit Stealth (which matters relatively little due to the Scarabs getting 3++), but would mostly be there as bullet-catchers. The conga-line would be interesting nonetheless.

Scarabs do not have Stealth. Swarms lost that in this edition. And yes, the Spyder would make the unit lose Fleet.....unless it grants it via Adaptive Subroutines. In either case, having models in your unit that can move 12" to catapult an MC into combat is more than a fair trade for losing Fleet.
The more I think about it, the more I really like the idea of the Canoptek Harvest as a single unit.
I can imagine a unit with 1 Spyder, 3 Scarabs and 4 Wraiths being pretty nasty. The Spyder could even add a Scarab per turn

Martel732 wrote:
You can't balance formations until units are balanced.

I kind of agree. But at least we can try to tone down the more egregious formations.

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Tone down the egregious ones, and buff the ones that you never see (due to their incredible suck). Some won't work simply because the units are so fundamentally flawed (alas, poor Gorkanauts/Lords of Skulls), but others might be rescued from the salvage heap.

Like the Brazen Onslaught for example: 2 units of Bloodcrushers and a unit of Terminators, in exchange for a weaker version of Rampage? Why not allow the Bloodcrushers to gain +1 toughness while within 6" of a terminator unit, the terminators to move +3" if they end their move within 6" of a Bloodcrusher unit, etc?

Make battle company take 10 man squads and only give the transports to the tacticals and devs.

Martel732 wrote:
Make battle company take 10 man squads and only give the transports to the tacticals and devs.

The Demi-Company does not provide for free Transports.

For the Skyhammer Annihilation Force:
* Remove First the Fire, Then the Blade
* Change Shock Deployment from being on a set turn to all units use the same Reserves Roll just like a Combined Reserves Unit.

This takes away the most egregious factors of this Formation.

I said battle company.

 Galef wrote:
I like both changes to the Aspect Host & Canoptek Harvest. Like, a lot actually. Forcing the Aspect host to diversify is brilliant. I might add that each unit can choose +1BS or +1WS, rather than the whole formation choosing the same. This way, you can take both melee & ranged units without feeling like some units aren't really benefitting.

-

I'd be very okay with this. I also kind of like the idea of more "Avenger Shrine" style formations where you take three of a given aspect (and possibly their Phoenix Lord?) and get a benefit tailored to that aspect. Obviously this raises a red flag where spiders are concerned, but spiders could stand to be tweaked a bit anyway. But that's another topic entirely.

WRAITH HOST:
I'd love for this detachment to drop the wraith knight and then add a slot for a wraithseer and/or more wraith lords. It would make a "proper" Iyanden army playable again without being forced to take a GMC.

THE GUARDIAN CORE FORMATIONS FROM THE WARHOST THAT I CAN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF:
I'd kind of like to fuse the storm guardian and guardian defender formations together. Basically, ,just let players bring some combination of storm guardians and guardian defenders. Three of either is a bit samey and excessive, but taking a couple squads of one and one squad of the other might make a rarely-seen formation a bit more appealing.


BATTLE COMPANY:
Martel's suggestion would work out pretty well. I also like the idea of simply removing the free transports aspect all together and giving each unit in the detachment X points to spend on wargear for themselves (but not on transports). In theory, the result would be that all the iconic-but-meh units taken in the formation would become more points efficient by getting "free gear." So tac marines might not be good, but they might be a lot better when they have, say, 40 points worth of free plasma weapons in each squad. You could still spend the points you're "saving" on transports if you're so inclined, but now all the "free points" in your army are wrapped up in upgrades for marines rather than in free transports.

Martel732 wrote:
I said battle company.

There is no Battle Company Formation. There is a larger Detachment which is not a Formation which has this rule for two of its Choices.

Changing a rule like this is like changing rules for a CAD. Know where the problem exists.

Whatever. You know what i meant. I don't have the vanilla codex so i don't know the specifics.

 Galef wrote:
I like both changes to the Aspect Host & Canoptek Harvest. Like, a lot actually. Forcing the Aspect host to diversify is brilliant. I might add that each unit can choose +1BS or +1WS, rather than the whole formation choosing the same. This way, you can take both melee & ranged units without feeling like some units aren't really benefitting...

I tend to read the Aspect Host as a collection of units from the same/associated shrines and try to use all one unit in them for fluff reasons; requiring them to diversify seems like an odd change to me, especially given that you're primarily after a hit to easily-spammable Warp Spiders. This one does feel like you're going after the formation to attack the unit, any change I'd consider making to the formation to nerf spamming Warp Spiders is going to hit every other Aspect as hard or harder (i.e. must take max units, now nobody will ever take a Dark Reaper Host again (1,050pts minimum)).

I'm fine with no +1 BS to transports (the nature of the Aspects makes any effect from the formation carrying over to the transport extremely unlikely) and with picking WS or BS to buff for each unit, but making the Shrine take three different Aspects is a brute-force and heavy-handed solution to nerfing just the one Aspect.


If we're going after meta-formations as well I'd like to suggest the following for the Craftworld Warhost:
Wraith-Constructs auxiliary entry: Remove the Wraithknight.
Remove the Wraith-Titans (1 Phantom or Revenant, 0-2 Wraithknights), Skyhunter Squadron (1-3 Lynxes) and Hammer of Vaul (1 Scorpion or Cobra) formations from the list of auxiliary formations.
Add category: Grand Battery. If a Craftworld Warhost contains at least one Command choice and two Core choices it may include one Grand Battery formation. This may consist of: one Wraith-Titans formation, one Skyhunter Squadron, one Hammer of Vaul formation, or 1-2 Wraithknights.

It doesn't make min/maxxing for Wraithknight spam impossible, but it requires a lot more basic tax units to take any superheavies at all in the Craftworld Warhost. 1-12 Wraithknights (or 1-36 Lynxes!) per Guardian Warhost was just stupid, eleven jetbike models and a Vyper shouldn't unlock as many superheavies as you want.


And to the Guardian Stormhost:
Add the following rule: Bring Forth the Storm. On any turn after the first Storm Guardian units in this formation may run and charge in the same turn.

I suspect this one's going to get overwritten in the next few weeks with a Fracture of Biel-Tan combined Harlequin/Wych/Storm Guardian formation, but free meltaguns and flamers really aren't enough to make Storm Guardians worthwhile. This might be. It probably still isn't enough, but it's better than nothing.

Wyldhunt: I would be ok with merging both Guardian detachments together, and perhaps modifying it to be:
1 Farseer
0-1 Warlock Conclave
1-2 Guardian units
1-2 Guardian units or War Walker Units
1-2 Guardian units or Vyper Units
1-2 Guardian units or support batteries.
Must have at least 1 Guardian unit for each non-Guardian unit (including the Farseer).
The Guardian units get free wargear upgrades, non-guardian units from the formation get PE against an enemy unit within 12" of a Guardian unit from the same formation, and if you take the maximum number of units, each unit eligible to do so may take their Warlock for free...

...that said, I generally dislike "free points", even when the points are for otherwise-useless upgrades like Power Weapons on Guardians (and especially for stuff like Transports). I'd have to think more on a more internally balanced Eldar.

Anomander: See, my view is formations should either let you make unique/unorthodox combinations work better than the sum of their parts, or improve bad units in a way that makes thematic sense. Ideally, said formations should be about "more than 2 unit types" or so. The Aspect Host circumvents a troop/HQ tax, for units you want to take anyway, while giving them bonuses that just make them better at what they were doing anyway.

I've always seen Aspects billed (especially by the GW heads/posteriors, ahem) as "the right Aspect for the right job", combined arms for everyone. While forcing distinct Aspects in the host risks a "battleforce" trap, some units do have fairly overlapping roles, and you still have the choice between either 2 Hosts, or even using a Host to complement a CAD (which still has Scatpack troops but that's a whole different story). You still have the option to run a lot of Warp Spiders should you desire, but it will be harder to do something extreme like "Pale Courts + 2 Aspect Shrines = 9 units of Warp Spiders", for example.

I'd be cool with hunting/revising meta-formations. The Orks could stand to have a functional one, for example.

I like the idea of merging the 2 Guardian Formations. It makes no sense to ever take 3 units of Storm Guardians.
It would be better done as 3 units of either in any combination (like the WraithHost).
The take 1 War Walker unit, 1 Vyper units and 1 Artillery unit.
I think all the same bonuses could still apply (PE on enemies within 12" of the Guardians, free wargear for the Guardians, etc)

Then I think the same could be done with the Aspect Host & Dira Avenger Shrine.
The basically have the same bonuses anyway. I would just chunk the DA Shrine fornation entirely, then require at least 1 of the 3 Aspect units be a Dire Avengers unit.
So it would be:
1 DA unit with Exarch
2 units of any other Aspect with Exarch

Even allowing them to be the same Aspect would be fine since you'd either have to treat the DAs as a 75pt tax, or actually spend points making them decent (which usually involves an expensive Serpent). But still no +1 BS to that Serpent.

 Charistoph wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Make battle company take 10 man squads and only give the transports to the tacticals and devs.

The Demi-Company does not provide for free Transports.

For the Skyhammer Annihilation Force:
* Remove First the Fire, Then the Blade
* Change Shock Deployment from being on a set turn to all units use the same Reserves Roll just like a Combined Reserves Unit.

This takes away the most egregious factors of this Formation.

It also make it a rather useless formation.

 Galef wrote:
I like the idea of merging the 2 Guardian Formations. It makes no sense to ever take 3 units of Storm Guardians.
It would be better done as 3 units of either in any combination (like the WraithHost).
The take 1 War Walker unit, 1 Vyper units and 1 Artillery unit.
I think all the same bonuses could still apply (PE on enemies within 12" of the Guardians, free wargear for the Guardians, etc)

Then I think the same could be done with the Aspect Host & Dira Avenger Shrine.
The basically have the same bonuses anyway. I would just chunk the DA Shrine fornation entirely, then require at least 1 of the 3 Aspect units be a Dire Avengers unit.
So it would be:
1 DA unit with Exarch
2 units of any other Aspect with Exarch

Even allowing them to be the same Aspect would be fine since you'd either have to treat the DAs as a 75pt tax, or actually spend points making them decent (which usually involves an expensive Serpent). But still no +1 BS to that Serpent.

I really don't think there's anything inherently wrong with taking 3 of the same aspect in an aspect host. The only aspect warrior that really seems to annoy people when spammed is the warp spider, and the warp spider is problematically powerful regardless of how you field it. Warp spiders in a CAD are still a problem. I've yet to hear anyone complain about three hawk, banshee, reaper, scorpion, or spear squads in an aspect host. So really, I feel the problem with taking three of a given unit in the host is that those 3 units might be warp spiders, and the better solution is to simply fix warp spiders.

That said, the aspect host (despite being one of my favorite formations) is in the category of "doesn't need to exist" formations. It's the only way to take aspects in a warhost outside of a pale court, but it's otherwise kind of unnecessary. Most of our aspect warriors are reasonably powerful these days, and our few "underpowered" aspects (banshees and spears) don't really have their core problems addressed by a bonus to WS or BS. I mean, I certainly don't mind running my banshees with +1BS, but it's still unnecessary.

If you were to fix spiders, the formation is fine as is, but the bonus to BS and WS is basically just a bonus for taking units you were already going to take. Exarchs aren't really a tax any more as most of them (all of them?) are quite good or even the whole point of taking the unit.

Also, can we all agree that shadow spectres should be allowed into an aspect host?

TLDR; The aspect host is mostly harmless as is. Spiders are the real problem. The formation is kind of unnecessary.

 mew28 wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Make battle company take 10 man squads and only give the transports to the tacticals and devs.

The Demi-Company does not provide for free Transports.

For the Skyhammer Annihilation Force:
* Remove First the Fire, Then the Blade
* Change Shock Deployment from being on a set turn to all units use the same Reserves Roll just like a Combined Reserves Unit.

This takes away the most egregious factors of this Formation.

It also make it a rather useless formation.

Not useless. It's primary purpose is listed in its last two rules. Its first rule just allows them to use the Drop Pod concept in a semi-broken manner. The second rule is what makes it egregious. The Relentless is only a mild problem when compared to the Charging right after arriving from Reserves.

Also keep in mind that these changes also make it so that adding an IC isn't a problem and doesn't get any significant bonuses.

I would also set it up so that it is clear that only the Models with the rule in the Assault Squad get the attack bonuses on Charing a unit that the Devastator Squads targeted.

The Skyhammer's bonus by itself isn't the issue, so much as Relentless and guaranteed arrival making Grav that much more dangerous. If Grav were rebalanced to be less "delete enemy units, unless they can use terrain or Intercept you", then it wouldn't be so much of an issue.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
The Skyhammer's bonus by itself isn't the issue, so much as Relentless and guaranteed arrival making Grav that much more dangerous. If Grav were rebalanced to be less "delete enemy units, unless they can use terrain or Intercept you", then it wouldn't be so much of an issue.

If the entire purpose of the Skyhammer Annihilation Squad was only to bring Relentless to Devastators, then there would be no reason to include Assault Marines nor any reason for the last two rules at all. Relentless is also useful for any other Heavy weapon that a Devastator may carry. The only difference is that people like rolling 6s to devastate a Vehicle for some reason, though Grav is far more useful as a counter to G/MCs.

Considering the whole entire setup of all the rules, Devastator Relentless is not the main purpose of the SAF.

People bring grav and need to because other heavy weapons kill mcs and gmcs too slowly. Because mcs are so hard ti remove, lots of other units end up getting hosed.

Martel732 wrote:
People bring grav and need to because other heavy weapons kill mcs and gmcs too slowly. Because mcs are so hard ti remove, lots of other units end up getting hosed.

That still does not make it the purpose of the Skyhammer Annihilation Force. That is a meta consideration due to certain army builds, not a consideration of all units you may face on the board.

I agree. Just commenting on grav. The assaults can help more vs some lists.

For re-ballancing the skyhammer:

Shock deployment should be removed. Let them come in together on one roll. Reserves are not that bad these days, and there are a few things you can do to make them more reliable.

Fire/Blade is fine as a rule, but IMHO all "charge from reserve” should be disorganized charges. That would apply here. Frankly, you could probably cut everything but this rule, and it would still be a fun formation. It fixes two of the major problems with the squads (getting shot up before getting to CC for the AMs, and mobility for the Devs.)

I like the concept that there is synergy between the assaults and the devs, and the last two rule feed into that. But I think Suppressing fusillade is a bit much. A 3d6 pinning test would be bad enough, and get the job done. Any time you get screwed, even if you make the roll, is bad. I can see those kinda of rules when talking about big expensive units, but as a free extra on a formation, there is not need.

Leave no survivers should probably just be re-rolls to hit. And even that’s pretty nice for a free boost.

Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation:
Remove the "Get all upgrades for free" rule and the one that reduces the risk of Get's hot weapons killing the model(s) using them

(Seriously, Canticles alone on that entire group is powerful enough by far)

Space Marine Librarius Conclave:
Change Empyric channelling to: A Librarian from this formation may re-roll one dice when harnessing warp charge for each other Librarian from this formation within 12"