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What are people's thoughts on the Rule of Three? I like how it encourages variety in an army but then again as a Drukhari player it prevents me from taking two battalion detachments with my Wych cult. Do you think the Rule of Three will make it past the Beta phase unchanged? What are your thoughts on it?

I am pretty sure you can get around the 2x battalion limit by using Lilith

Rule of 3 doesn't apply to troops or dedicated transports. You can take 3x Succubus, and Lilith to fill the HQs.

I think they should have identified the units causing a problem, and done something about them, not put out a blanket rule

e.g. Custards on Jetbikes, you want a flying captain? you can have one for each squad of actual bikes + one additional one, so any can take one

The Tyranid Tyrant could be "one per detachment" etc

Consider the Smite Spam change.

Blanket rule first propose, followed by army specific exclusions.

leopard wrote:
I think they should have identified the units causing a problem, and done something about them, not put out a blanket rule

e.g. Custards on Jetbikes, you want a flying captain? you can have one for each squad of actual bikes + one additional one, so any can take one

The Tyranid Tyrant could be "one per detachment" etc

That leads to whack-a-mole. This unit is spammed because it's undercosted, so it get restricted. Now the next most undercost unit is being spammed. On to the next unit.

 EnTyme wrote:

leopard wrote:
I think they should have identified the units causing a problem, and done something about them, not put out a blanket rule

e.g. Custards on Jetbikes, you want a flying captain? you can have one for each squad of actual bikes + one additional one, so any can take one

The Tyranid Tyrant could be "one per detachment" etc

That leads to whack-a-mole. This unit is spammed because it's undercosted, so it get restricted. Now the next most undercost unit is being spammed. On to the next unit.

Hence actually bothering to identify the problems, blanket bans just cause other issues - like how the "no special characters" rule in WHFB to nerf one or two also took out the much more colourful ones you hardly ever saw anyway.

At the moment you have whack-a-mole with very broad hammers smacking a lot of stuff near the targets

GW made the change as an event suggestion rule and as has already been proven in this thread DE can still do double witch battalion so no problem anyway.

Picking on one unit would just affect that unit, GW also got a rather rude awakening to the concept of skew lists and just how hard some of those skews can be when they went to LVO.
This is what it's about not just units the whole I give you nothing but T3 4ppm spam or here is my wall of T8 half your may aswell not bother. Its here to stay and it's good but broken by guards squadrons but hopefully they are next in line

It doesn't really do much. Most "spammy" army builds don't actually violate the Rule of 3 (Hellblaster spam can easily be 30 Hellblasters in 3 squads, Shield-Captains are usually taken in a detachment of 3, etc.), tying the restriction to unique datasheets means that there are quite a lot of things that you can just take a slightly different version of (no more 5 Riptides? Say hello to 3 Riptides and 2 Y'Vahra!), and the vehicle squadron mechanism means that plenty of vehicle-spam is completely unaffected.

The reason the Tau got the 1/detachment Commander fix at the same time is that there are five different non-unique XV-8 Commanders (XV-8 (Crisis), XV-85 (Enforcer), XV-86 (Coldstar), XV-81 (the one with the smart missile system), and XV-84 (the one with the Networked Markerlight)).

So in practice the Rule of 3 constrains cheap-psyker-spam, a narrow range of weird MSU builds, and a few light tanks that don't really need constraining.

It's stupid and it's also just a beta suggestion for tournaments, not an actual rule for Matched Play itself.

Where it is really unfair is with the squadron rule . Either all vehicles should be able to be taken in squadrons or none of them should. A SM player is limited to 3 predators but an IG player can have 13 Leman Russ tanks (not counting FW data sheets). The same with Storm Hawks (max 3) and Valkyries (9). Just to give an example that is not "fluffy".

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Where it is really unfair is with heavy vehicles. Either all heavy vehicles should be able to be taken in squadrons or none of them should. A SM player is limited to 3 predators but an IG player can have 13 Leman Russ tanks (not counting FW data sheets).

Predators aren't "heavy vehicles". They never have been, they never will be.

I mean that they use the "heavy" slot and they are vehicles. Just like all the other "tanks" in the game.

I think personally that the rule of three is a great idea that will hopefully encourage some semblance of "diversity" in lists. While the Guard will clearly still be boogeyman to all of you (yet are strangely absent from the top tourney boards....Was there even a single Leman Russ in the top 20?) I think there is a real chance that people may actually try other units in their army to perform the tasks they were designed for instead of simply taking more of a cheap option and hope it fulfills that role. I would like to see tables that have Ogryns, Chaos Space Marines, and Assault marines on them in the big tournies, all those units can have a place but are pushed aside when you can simply take 30 dark reapers or 8 razorbacks and blast things off the field.

And as an aside I am a proponent of the 5ppm guardsman.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Where it is really unfair is with the squadron rule . Either all vehicles should be able to be taken in squadrons or none of them should. A SM player is limited to 3 predators but an IG player can have 13 Leman Russ tanks (not counting FW data sheets). The same with Storm Hawks (max 3) and Valkyries (9). Just to give an example that is not "fluffy".

To be fair squadrons was a guard exclusive rule for a very very long time up until 7th edition took that from them and started to pass it around. They were always about maximizing the slots available to them to get more men on the field, it was frankly one of the Guards core gimmicks.

It's great. There are some strange stuff going on with some models having multiple instances of their data slates, but I'm confident that they will get addressed with the next iteration.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
I think personally that the rule of three is a great idea that will hopefully encourage some semblance of "diversity" in lists. While the Guard will clearly still be boogeyman to all of you (yet are strangely absent from the top tourney boards....Was there even a single Leman Russ in the top 20?) I think there is a real chance that people may actually try other units in their army to perform the tasks they were designed for instead of simply taking more of a cheap option and hope it fulfills that role. I would like to see tables that have Ogryns, Chaos Space Marines, and Assault marines on them in the big tournies, all those units can have a place but are pushed aside when you can simply take 30 dark reapers or 8 razorbacks and blast things off the field.

And as an aside I am a proponent of the 5ppm guardsman.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Where it is really unfair is with the squadron rule . Either all vehicles should be able to be taken in squadrons or none of them should. A SM player is limited to 3 predators but an IG player can have 13 Leman Russ tanks (not counting FW data sheets). The same with Storm Hawks (max 3) and Valkyries (9). Just to give an example that is not "fluffy".

To be fair squadrons was a guard exclusive rule for a very very long time up until 7th edition took that from them and started to pass it around. They were always about maximizing the slots available to them to get more men on the field, it was frankly one of the Guards core gimmicks.

Point of order. You can still take 8 Razorbacks (Dedicated Transports not subject to the rule of 3) and thirty Dark Reapers (they do have to be in three squads of 10, though).

As for Guard and tank squadrons the only period during which Guard were allowed tank squadrons and you couldn't just take more detachments to get more tanks was 5e. There were no tank squadrons in 4e and earlier (the "vehicle squadron" rules were used by things like Land Speeders and Piranhas, not proper tanks).

I like that you can still field 10 bloodthirsters with rule of 3. Not as cool as other loopholes because 'thirsters are slightly overcosted. But hey, when life gives you lemons, blood for the blood god I guess.

Would the Corsair falcon be limited by Craftworlder falcons?

If not, I could fit 4 Falcons in a list! Sure, not OP, but Falcons!

Who was taking three battalions of only Wyches?

Considering 95% of the army lists I have ever played complies with the current Rule of 3, I have no issue with it. It makes for more variety and thus less possibility of getting stopped by "spam X unit"

I think its good for the game, but some armies or some units should be excluded from the rule (more so for fluff reasons and better balance with some Codex's)

People focus one 3, but it varies by points, 1000 or less and it's Rule of 2, which can be really punishing

I think it's great. The only thing better would be a full return to the 5th edition FOC (one per army, no other detachments allowed), where you can't take more than three of any unit because you run out of FOC slots.

I'm all on board, but I'd have rather this was not necessary from the beginning. Codices should have gone back to the simple "0-1", "0-6" etc. before the unit entries as they have in past editions. GW is in a weird place, where they designed a wide-open game (I'm still not entirely sure why you need a book's permission to play something like Open War...) and are now having to slowly rebox it after a 5th grader tore into it on Christmas morning.

They then have to balance this with the desire to sell more models constantly (something they'll continue to do regardless).

On top of this, it's a simple suggestion and not something anyone is bound to follow. Want the rule of four? Start a 2005 point tournament. Problem solved.

As usual, 40K is pretending to exist as a game which can be both casual and competitive (something it's never pulled off). In this instance the tournament/competitive side may be hurt, but I don't really care. If the only way you can play 40K is to rely on spamming one or two units from your codex...that's on you. Find a new codex, or find a new game. If you were silly enough to buy, build and paint 10 of some silly model, you probably had it comin'.

If it, in any way, makes armies more varied or interesting, I'm all for it. It hasn't impacted anybody that I play 40K with - at all - but that should tell you the type of crowd I game with.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Where it is really unfair is with the squadron rule . Either all vehicles should be able to be taken in squadrons or none of them should. A SM player is limited to 3 predators but an IG player can have 13 Leman Russ tanks (not counting FW data sheets). The same with Storm Hawks (max 3) and Valkyries (9). Just to give an example that is not "fluffy".

To be fair squadrons was a guard exclusive rule for a very very long time up until 7th edition took that from them and started to pass it around. They were always about maximizing the slots available to them to get more men on the field, it was frankly one of the Guards core gimmicks.

Point of order. You can still take 8 Razorbacks (Dedicated Transports not subject to the rule of 3) and thirty Dark Reapers (they do have to be in three squads of 10, though).

As for Guard and tank squadrons the only period during which Guard were allowed tank squadrons and you couldn't just take more detachments to get more tanks was 5e. There were no tank squadrons in 4e and earlier (the "vehicle squadron" rules were used by things like Land Speeders and Piranhas, not proper tanks).

30 Reapers in 3 squads is way more manageable because a large reason reaper spam was so obnoxious was because of the tempest launcher on the exarch letting the unit deal with both infantry and tanks. 2D6 AP -2 Str 4 is no joke when there's 6-10 of them on the field.

I'm really loving the rule of three. It shut down a lot of stupid broken lists and is a much better long-term solution than playing whack a mole with the most point efficient flavor of the month. A 3 unit limit puts an upper bound on how much an undercosted unit can be exploited. Perfect example was flying Hive Tyrants. Killing 3 is manageable, killing 7 much less so. Raising a Hive Tyrants points cost to where taking 1-3 is still effective but taking 5+ isn't would be almost impossible.

Rule of 3 is a bit too much of a broad stroke change and ultimately just kicks the can instead of actually tackling the issue with game balance. It doesn't stop you from spamming troops or transports so if your OP units are in those slots then you still golden while it also heavily punishes anybody wanting to play more MSU. In addition to punishing MSU it also heavily punishes armies that have cheap units that you would want to spam (for example maybe you want your markerlights to be sourced from Tau Marksmen instead of drone or pathfinder squads) but does nothing for spamming super expensive units or squadrons of units. It might address some issues of armies having one unit wonders that become problematic when spammed but it does nothing to address why that unit was so powerful in the first place and if your faction has access to multiple powerful units (see soup lists) then rule of 3 only requires you to look to cherry pick the best units from your soup options while 1 source factions (Tau, Orks, Crons) don't have that luxury.

 Vankraken wrote:
Rule of 3 is a bit too much of a broad stroke change and ultimately just kicks the can instead of actually tackling the issue with game balance. It doesn't stop you from spamming troops or transports so if your OP units are in those slots then you still golden while it also heavily punishes anybody wanting to play more MSU. In addition to punishing MSU it also heavily punishes armies that have cheap units that you would want to spam (for example maybe you want your markerlights to be sourced from Tau Marksmen instead of drone or pathfinder squads) but does nothing for spamming super expensive units or squadrons of units. It might address some issues of armies having one unit wonders that become problematic when spammed but it does nothing to address why that unit was so powerful in the first place and if your faction has access to multiple powerful units (see soup lists) then rule of 3 only requires you to look to cherry pick the best units from your soup options while 1 source factions (Tau, Orks, Crons) don't have that luxury.

Pretty much this. Units that serve different functions depending on loadout, but have a single datasheet suffer while armies with redundant datsheets don't care. Armies with good/cheap troop choices tend to do a bit better than armies without.

 DominayTrix wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Rule of 3 is a bit too much of a broad stroke change and ultimately just kicks the can instead of actually tackling the issue with game balance. It doesn't stop you from spamming troops or transports so if your OP units are in those slots then you still golden while it also heavily punishes anybody wanting to play more MSU. In addition to punishing MSU it also heavily punishes armies that have cheap units that you would want to spam (for example maybe you want your markerlights to be sourced from Tau Marksmen instead of drone or pathfinder squads) but does nothing for spamming super expensive units or squadrons of units. It might address some issues of armies having one unit wonders that become problematic when spammed but it does nothing to address why that unit was so powerful in the first place and if your faction has access to multiple powerful units (see soup lists) then rule of 3 only requires you to look to cherry pick the best units from your soup options while 1 source factions (Tau, Orks, Crons) don't have that luxury.

Pretty much this. Units that serve different functions depending on loadout, but have a single datasheet suffer while armies with redundant datsheets don't care. Armies with good/cheap troop choices tend to do a bit better than armies without.

This is true in general, does not depend on the rule of 3.

The factions that are "competitive" right now, are the ones that use a lot of troops in lists. If your codex does not work will with it's troops then your codex is not working correctly and you have limited builds to compete. CSM and CWE are clear examples of this, if it wasn't for some crutch combo and underscosted models (alpha zerkers, alaitoc hemlocks and so on), those codici would be on SM level.

Then you look at Tau, Necrons, Tyranids, Astra Militarum, Adeptus, Thousand Sons and Drukhari, which can play whatever they want and still make decent lists that win tournaments, because they have good troops that interact well with the theme of the codex.

 Peregrine wrote:
I think it's great. The only thing better would be a full return to the 5th edition FOC (one per army, no other detachments allowed), where you can't take more than three of any unit because you run out of FOC slots.

The FOC was magnificent. I still use it to plan what to buy when starting a new army.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
To be fair squadrons was a guard exclusive rule for a very very long time up until 7th edition took that from them and started to pass it around. They were always about maximizing the slots available to them to get more men on the field, it was frankly one of the Guards core gimmicks.

Not true, orks and eldar also had squadrons for a long time: Kanz, buggies, trakks, vypers and war walkers were available in squadrons since at least 4th edition.

As for the rule of 3: Well, it did kill PBC spam before it became a thing.

I think those saying "Rule of 3 is just not dealing with balance issues" are missing the mark. It does 3 things

1.) Future proof against the spam that happens after they fix the few units that are the current kings of the meta. Fix those the next thing steps up. Unless you think they are going to achieve perfect balance, people will always spam whatever has a slight edge, doing this makes that not possible.

2.) Makes balance easier to achieve. IT is near impossible to balance against spam and have units still be good, unless you achieve perfect balance across they system. Restrictions in army composition allow for units to be powerful but prevents those units from dominating the game by them self.

3.) Makes it possible for them not to need an FAQ after every major event/ stop people from buying stuff that will then get nerfed. Address issues 1 at a time and 2 things happen. Either you need to constantly fix problems as the next big thing arises that needs restriction, which means more FAQs, or those things dominate for the 6 months between FAQs and the game becomes a money chase of buy 10 of x, win events, sell off buy next big thing.

I do agree that the application to troops and dedicated transports is a bit wonky but you cannot really restrict troops as many armies lack options in that slot, and making them 0-3 means those armies are forced to soup if they want CP. Transports have the issue that they can be purchased for any unit in your army. So they have somewhat of a restriction, that said they should probably be a bit tougher to buy as plenty of them also serve as battle tanks in addition to transports.