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So i'm curious, i'm a returning Warhammer 40k player after 3-4 years break.

I'm playing Necrons, picked up 1850 points worth over past month, played a few games now with them, and I use their Reclamation Legion + Destroyer Cult + Royal Court. These give me certain benefits that are actually very valuable, especially the rerolls on to wound for destroyers.

My question is, after looking through other codexes, do they not get the option for formations?

Which armies do currently? Why do some and some dont?

Thanks!

sirknighter wrote:
So i'm curious, i'm a returning Warhammer 40k player after 3-4 years break.

I'm playing Necrons, picked up 1850 points worth over past month, played a few games now with them, and I use their Reclamation Legion + Destroyer Cult + Royal Court. These give me certain benefits that are actually very valuable, especially the rerolls on to wound for destroyers.

My question is, after looking through other codexes, do they not get the option for formations?

Which armies do currently? Why do some and some dont?

Thanks!

Most armies have them to some extent, some have more some have fewer, some have rather pointless ones some have absurdly overpowered ones, Necrons have some of the most powerful and easy to use along with Space Marines and a couple other armies. Some have them in their core codex some don't.

As for the why? GW decided towards the end of 6E they wanted to try using free bonuses as a sales mechanism, and have ramped up their availability and power as time went on through 7E for whatever they want to push for that monthly sales cycle.

Many armies have very expensive decurions, the orks one for example costs 1900 points with standard and mandatory upgrades. At 1850 points you'll only se SM and Necrons use them almost everytime.

I believe every army has a formation or alternate force org of some description. As for lacing a Decurion type detatchment:
DE (sort of fixed in the new gathering storm book)
Inq/SoB (sort of, since it's multi faction)
'Nids (they were among the first to recieve formations and they got something like 22 of them before the transition was made from dataslates/formations to decurion style detatchments)
GK

And then you've got the ally armies like tempestus, knights, harlies, LotD etc who don't really count, though they've all got their own formations or force org charts.

 Vaktathi wrote:
As for the why? GW decided towards the end of 6E they wanted to try using free bonuses as a sales mechanism, and have ramped up their availability and power as time went on through 7E for whatever they want to push for that monthly sales cycle.

They haven't really ramped up the power over time, they just have a ridiculously inconsistent design philosophy that changes every other book or so.

They typically write formations without playtesting, and they frequently do so without a very good understanding of how the army functions or even 40K in general, resulting in formations that are either pointless (most ork formations) or over the top (Riptide Wing, Aspect Host).

If you include formations, 7th edition is in a really, really, really bad place with a very undiverse meta featuring most lists being more or less written by GW. I've got a number of fluffy Ork players in my local meta. I've only ever faced 4 of the 12-15 Ork formations on the table. Because GW wrote them so that only those 4 are really attractive and usable. It is even worse for space marines. They have lots more formations, but typically you only see 3-4 of them out of maybe 50. Because the playability gap between good formations and bad is so massive, we get a really, really undiverse meta which is a shame.

tag8833 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
As for the why? GW decided towards the end of 6E they wanted to try using free bonuses as a sales mechanism, and have ramped up their availability and power as time went on through 7E for whatever they want to push for that monthly sales cycle.

They haven't really ramped up the power over time, they just have a ridiculously inconsistent design philosophy that changes every other book or so.

Look at the late 6E/early 7E armies compared with the 2015 and later releases, there is a marked increase in power level. Granted, they're also wildly inconsistent over time, but in general, the power levels and abilities of armies has risen dramatically. This isn't just formations dependent, though they're a key source of that. A rerollable 2++ invul save was literally purely that realm of bad internet hyperbole a couple editions ago with otherwise compatible rules and armies. 35pt infantry with D weapons, Titans sporting multiple D pieplates in 1500pt games and entire armies of Knights, entire troops units armed with BS4 Scatterlasers on jetbikes, armies with 500pts of free units and upgrades, etc is all part of the general upward trend of power blasting. People thought 5pt upgrades to make S7 autocannons S8 in 5E was insane, and that's nothing compared to what's possible now.

They typically write formations without playtesting, and they frequently do so without a very good understanding of how the army functions or even 40K in general, resulting in formations that are either pointless (most ork formations) or over the top (Riptide Wing, Aspect Host).

If you include formations, 7th edition is in a really, really, really bad place with a very undiverse meta featuring most lists being more or less written by GW. I've got a number of fluffy Ork players in my local meta. I've only ever faced 4 of the 12-15 Ork formations on the table. Because GW wrote them so that only those 4 are really attractive and usable. It is even worse for space marines. They have lots more formations, but typically you only see 3-4 of them out of maybe 50. Because the playability gap between good formations and bad is so massive, we get a really, really undiverse meta which is a shame.

All true, and you won't get any argument from me on those counts, but the upper bounds of power levels has also risen dramatically and formations have pushed some of that, in several instances in some rather nakedly sales-aggressive ways (e.g. Skyhammer, which was initially a bundled package with web-exclusive sales promotions).

 Drasius wrote:
I believe every army has a formation or alternate force org of some description. As for lacing a Decurion type detatchment:
DE (sort of fixed in the new gathering storm book)
Inq/SoB (sort of, since it's multi faction)
'Nids (they were among the first to recieve formations and they got something like 22 of them before the transition was made from dataslates/formations to decurion style detatchments)
GK

And then you've got the ally armies like tempestus, knights, harlies, LotD etc who don't really count, though they've all got their own formations or force org charts.

You say Tyranids, but in my friends tyranids codex he doesn't have anything about formations or bonuses D: so where does he see them?

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Shield-of-Baal-Leviathan-Softback-English

And in addition to the book Ghaz linked there's also several small ebook releases that contain Tyranid Formations & the Formation including in the Get Starting! Tyranids box.

Oh and there's also one that was a part of the Deathstorm boxset, though that one in particular is pretty useless.

Basically theirs are spread out between like 6 or 7 different sources, and most are of dubious use compared to a Combined Arms or Hive Fleet Detachment.