Who's Stratagem Is It, Anyways

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**Bharring**

Stratagems are typically strategic options that a commander can leverage to get the most of his men (or beasts or vehicles or insects).

It makes total sense for an UltraMarine team to be familiar with using an Auspex to detect incomming enemies and blast them as they show up. Complete sense. But how does some random Company Commander know the UltraMarines can pull off that maneuver?

My proposed change: Armies have access to stratagems and faction traits of their Warlord's codex.

I think this would reduce, but not remove soup. If you want Guardsmen holding the line while Marines smash some face, go for it - but you're either a Guardsmen force with Marine support (and such have that trait), or a Marine force with some Guardsmen boots (and such have that trait).

A lot of traits and stratagems are about the force operating efficiently and effectively using that particular subfaction's preferred methods and tactics. So if you had Saim Hann Windriders or Biel Tan Aspect Warriors operating under an Uthwe or even an Archon, wouldn't it make sense to not have the super special maneuvers that require a Saim Hann or Biel Tan force to leverage?

The Warlord's traits/stratagems shouldn't be turned off by taking allies - he can still direct the fight, and is intimately familiar with *his* subfaction's style and capabilities. But he is not a member of those other subfactions.

**Slayer-Fan123**

The issue is that it creates a problem of how the army suddenly forgot how to fight. That's pretty silly.

**Bharring**

Are you saying a Catchan army "suddenly forgot" how to fight like Ultramarines?

The *units* aren't forgetting how to fight. The *commander* isn't remembering stuff he would never be able to know.

**Ice_can**

Bharring wrote:
Are you saying a Catchan army "suddenly forgot" how to fight like Ultramarines?

The *units* aren't forgetting how to fight. The *commander* isn't remembering stuff he would never be able to know.

Can you clear up something as your rule and example don't line up in my reading of this.

If I take a Saim Hann Windriders detachment and an Alitoc battaliom with Warlord and an Alitoc Airwing

Do they both get all their strategums as they are all from the warlords codex or do I only get generics +Alitoc?

**Bharring**

Generics + Alaitocs.

**Ice_can**

Bharring wrote:
Generics + Alaitocs.

Mono codec maybe but mono subfaction is too far IMHO.

**Galef**

So what you are saying (using the Saim-hann + Alaitoc army with Alaitoc WL as an example) is that a unit of Saim-Hann Spears would not be able to use the Advance + Charge strat because the Alaitoc WL isn't familiar with that particular tactic used by Saim-Hann warriors.

Yeah. That actually makes sense.

-

**Bharring**

To put it more clearly:

An Alaitoc Autarch (war-leader, for you Mon'Keighs) would be well versed in fieldcraft, and would be able to leverage his Alaitoc kinsmen effectively. But where a Saim-Hann Autarch might be able to leverage some arcane Saim-Hann maneuver to get their Spears further upfield and into the enemy faster, the Alaitoc Autarch wouldn't be able to leverage the Saim-Hann Spears any better than he could leverage his own Spears.

I think you'd see only a little less intercodex soup, but a lot less intracodex soup.

Ice_can,
The detatchment would still have the generics, the Asuryani stratagems, and the Alaitoc stratagems. It would not have the Saim-Hann stratagems.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Galef wrote:
So what you are saying (using the Saim-hann + Alaitoc army with Alaitoc WL as an example) is that a unit of Saim-Hann Spears would not be able to use the Advance + Charge strat because the Alaitoc WL isn't familiar with that particular tactic used by Saim-Hann warriors.

Yeah. That actually makes sense.

-

It really doesn't. That's units forgetting how to fight, which is silly.

**Bharring**

Slayer,
Are you saying the Alaitoc Autarch is forgetting his Saim-Hainn training?

Or the UM captain is forgetting his Iron Hands training?

**mrhappyface**

*My Chaos Lord leads his Renegade forces against the Loyalist scum! But he has an ace up his sleave: Daemons! He has made many pacts with Gods and they have offered him the aid of several legions of Daemons. But oh dear! It seems this Chaos Lord has forgotten where Daemons come from, I guess the Daemons just won't take part in this battle.* - Chaos Lord forgetting that Daemons arrive on the battlefield via the warp, strange seeing as though he has seen thousands of Daemons do just this in his milleniums of fighting. I suppose that Loyalist Captain must have hit his head pretty hard.

**Bharring**

... You make a very good point...

I was thinking of Stratagems as the "a little extra" flavoring like traits.

Traits were presented as bonuses for forces that fight in a certain way from subfactions with a codex. And only if the entire detachment were that subfaction. For instance, you can make an ADEPTUS ASTARTES detachment with IH Devs, Sally and UM Tacs, and Iron Hands ASM - but you get no Trait currently.

What if the rule were only the subfaction trait of your warlord is available to your army (where applicable)? You could still have an UM Warlord and detatchemnt, and they'd get their traits. But adding another detatchment so your Devs ccould be IH wouldn't give them the IH trait. Or an added IG force wouldn't get the Cadian trait.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Bharring wrote:
Slayer,
Are you saying the Alaitoc Autarch is forgetting his Saim-Hainn training?

Or the UM captain is forgetting his Iron Hands training?

I'm saying that Saim Hainn bikes forgetting they can do that is silly.

If you want Strategems more tied to the HQ choices fine, but this isn't the way to go about it. Kal did a good example of one in the Skitarii Alpha thread.

**BrianDavion**

it's worth noting that any commander worth his salt is going to have subrdinates whose job is specificly to say "hey man, my people can do this"

**tneva82**

Bharring wrote:
Slayer,
Are you saying the Alaitoc Autarch is forgetting his Saim-Hainn training?

Or the UM captain is forgetting his Iron Hands training?

Saim hann units are the ones forgetting saim hann training.

Who says it's warlord ordering unit to use their auspex in the first place? Overall leaders don't do such micromanagement. "TAKE OUT YOUR AUSPEX AND USE IT!". Nah they have bigger issues to think about does unit use auspex or not.

**JohnnyHell**

It’s a very artificial and gamey limit, and goes against GW wanting to sell you whatever kits you want to buy. This won’t appear simply for the latter reason, but as others have noted the “I forgot how to fight today” element is also pretty immersion-breaking.

**Bharring**

So if I take some Saim Hann Windriders in my Uthwe brigade lead by an Uthwe farseer, everyone "forgets how to fight", and that's normal and expected. But if I take an Uthwe brigade and a Saim Hann Outrider, nobody "forgets" anything? That seems even more gamey to me.

I suppose the confusion is my mistaken belief that Stratagems were a combination between the commander of the force directing things and the cohesiveness of the army fighting in a certain way. That's how it was originally billed, although some above examples make it very clear that's not the case.

**BaconCatBug**

While this idea is stupid, what isn't stupid is locking CP generated by detachments to only that detachments stratagems and BRB Stratagems, with the base 3 CP being wildcard that can be used anywhere.

**Bharring**

My big concern with that is bookkeeping. Granted, the fewer detachments or simpler the structure you use, the less there is to keep track of.

Although would it be better to do across detachment keyword lines instead of detatchments? So if you had 2 Brigades of Cadia, would you split their CP into two seperate piles?