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This is partially a spinoff from another thread and partially something I've been kicking around for a while. A couple of my pet peeves about the current game include:

1.) It's weird that "special weapon" stratagems like flakk missiles, haywire grenades, torment grenades, etc. are paid for with CP. The implication there is that having more troops in your army is somehow tied to how often you can shoot anti-airplane missiles at airplanes. I'm the first one to point out that 40k is full of abstractions, but it seems like the current method of doing things gets in the way of various CP generation fixes and puts some of my favorite weapons (haywire grenades, I'm talking about you) behind a precious CP cost.

2.) When it comes to relics, there always seem to be obvious winners and losers in a given book, and the losers are usually the handful of interesting but sub-optimal weapon relics. As a result the rules for such relics are simply never used. These weapons aren't generally game-breakingly powerful, so why not make them more accessible?

So with those items in mind, I'm basically suggesting that we convert most "ammo stratagems" and sub-par relics back to wargear that you simply pay for with army points. To illustrate what this might look like, let me use the drukhari as an example.

STRATS THAT BECOME WARGEAR
Haywire Grenades:
Profile: Range 6", Strength 4, AP-1, Damage 1, Grenade d3, against vehicles, this weapon deals 1 mortal wound in addition to its normal damage on a to-wound roll of 4+. On a to-wound roll of 6, it does d3 mortal wounds instead.
Availability: Kabalites, true born, wyches, blood brides, hellions, and reavers may be equipped with haywire grenades for 15 points per unit. Succubi and archons may be given haywire grenades for 10 points per model.
Notes: Averaging about 1 wound per grenade, you're not going to transform a unit into a dedicated anti-tank unit with this piece of wargear. But, giving these grenades to several units that are already expecting to get close to the enemy can add up to a respectable chunk of anti-vehicle damage, albeit at a price tag that keeps these from being an auto-take.

Torment Grenades:
Profile: Range 18", Strength *, AP-4, Damage 1, Assault 1, this weapon wounds all targets on a 4+ regardless of Toughness. Units that suffer one or more unsaved wounds to this weapon take a -1 to to-hit rolls for the remainder of the player turn.
Availability: Any phantasm grenade launcher can be equipped with torment grenades for 15 points. When the launcher shoots, choose between this and its standard profile.
Notes: Making this thing's debuff only last during the turn that it hurts something means it will generally only be useful in lucky overwatch scenarios and on your own turn when you're charging into the enemy lines. It becomes a support item that, once again, is expensive enough to discourage spamming. As an alternative to the to-hit penalty, you could have it turn off overwatch on the target unit or something. Also, this version is a lot faster to roll for than the normal phantasm launcher with its d3 shots. While removing this thing's mortal wound generation is a loss for drukhari, the inclusion of haywire grenades means they should be able to more than make up for the loss of the torment grenade's d3 mortal wounds.

There are other strats that could become weapons, but I feel like these make my point.


RELICS THAT BECOME 0-1 WARGEAR
Animus Vitae:
Profile: Remains unchanged. Basically, it's a one-use mortal wound grenade. If you hurt something with it, you treat the turn number as being 1 higher for Power From Pain purposes.
Availability: A single drukhari character in your army may take an animus vitae for 15 points.
Notes: When was the last time you saw someone use this?

The Flensing Blade:
Profile: Remains unchanged. Basically, it wounds non-vehicles on a 3+ regardless of toughness and goes from damage d3 to damage 3 against characters.
Availability: A single Coven of Twelve character, Acothyst, or Aberrant in your army may take the flensing blade for 20 points.
Notes: Again, not an auto-take, but now you can stick a character-hunting haemonculus into your army without feeling like you're missing out on rerolling wounds for your ravagers or denying the wych with your Helm of Spite. Note that this relic has also been made available to non-characters letting you give more personality to your squad leaders (hopefully without breaking the game).

The assumption here is that relics would remain 0-1 (meaning you can't have more than one in your army) because their effects might be tame individually but OP in abundance or simply too complicated to be something you want to see all over the place. You could make exceptions to that assumption if you wanted though. How broken would it really be if there were a handful of multi-shot shuriken pistols running around in an eldar or harlequin army? The main goal here is to let relics that never see play see play by making them use up a less finite resource than CP (points).

Some relics should remain relics. We don't need every smash captain to have an armour indomnitus. Not every farseer should have a phoenix gem. But giving a burning blade to your autarch or banshee exarch? That could be neat.

Thoughts?

Stratagems for wargear keeps you from getting locked into gear that might not be useful against a particular opponent (for example, haywire vs. a nid opponent, or flak when the enemy has no fliers). But I see nothing against having the option to spend points for the wargear if you want to save CP for other uses.

As for relics, I wish they cost points instead of CP. That, or some relics should cost more CPs than others (though 1-3 CP is probably not granular enough). It doesn’t feel right to acquire relic via CP no more than it would to buy unique characters with CP instead of points.

I'd rather buff the Stratagems and Relics in question. The removal of the need to stock up on AA in your list might have been an effort to reduce the game coming down to which army counters which. I like that you don't get shafted if you face a Flyer just because you don't have a flakk gun in your list, same thing with Knights and having enough anti-Knight. S3 and 4 weapons can do damage to a T8 model and armour values of vehicles which were basically a list check as much as a luck check.

I'd prefer being able to pre-buy the Haywire Grenades Stratagem to having to buy it on units, less bookkeeping that way in my estimation. Being able to buy gakky relics for pts is a really super good idea, I might drop 10 pts on even the worst Necron relics or at least 5 pts, 1 CP is just too valuable to drop on some of them though.

I don't mind CP, your Razorwing flocks aren't going to dig ditches, prepare camp etc. etc. You need slaves or Troops for that and either the Troops bring the slaves or whatever. You can forge the narrative if you try hard enough. It's more important that the game functions you'll feel that it's a game when your entire army is standing around doing nothing while getting stomped by Knights rather than spending CP on Haywire Grenades. Maybe they were hiding them for a rainy day or their supply lines delivered them right in the nick of time.

 Stormonu wrote:
Stratagems for wargear keeps you from getting locked into gear that might not be useful against a particular opponent (for example, haywire vs. a nid opponent, or flak when the enemy has no fliers). But I see nothing against having the option to spend points for the wargear if you want to save CP for other uses.

As for relics, I wish they cost points instead of CP. That, or some relics should cost more CPs than others (though 1-3 CP is probably not granular enough). It doesn’t feel right to acquire relic via CP no more than it would to buy unique characters with CP instead of points.

In that logic, Lascannons themselves should be a Strategem in case your opponent brought nothing but some Warbosses and Boyz.

That's part of what makes a TAC list a TAC list. You need to figure out what's most important to bring. I for one had no problem paying for Melta Bombs on my Captain, even if he never made it to melee with a vehicle.

 vict0988 wrote:
I'd rather buff the Stratagems and Relics in question. The removal of the need to stock up on AA in your list might have been an effort to reduce the game coming down to which army counters which. I like that you don't get shafted if you face a Flyer just because you don't have a flakk gun in your list, same thing with Knights and having enough anti-Knight. S3 and 4 weapons can do damage to a T8 model and armour values of vehicles which were basically a list check as much as a luck check.

I'd prefer being able to pre-buy the Haywire Grenades Stratagem to having to buy it on units, less bookkeeping that way in my estimation. Being able to buy gakky relics for pts is a really super good idea, I might drop 10 pts on even the worst Necron relics or at least 5 pts, 1 CP is just too valuable to drop on some of them though.

I don't mind CP, your Razorwing flocks aren't going to dig ditches, prepare camp etc. etc. You need slaves or Troops for that and either the Troops bring the slaves or whatever. You can forge the narrative if you try hard enough. It's more important that the game functions you'll feel that it's a game when your entire army is standing around doing nothing while getting stomped by Knights rather than spending CP on Haywire Grenades. Maybe they were hiding them for a rainy day or their supply lines delivered them right in the nick of time.

First off: 40k Is still a wargame, brought an all infantry list with no AT? don't be surprised when you get shelled out of the map.

Secondly: Take the missile launcher, tell me that thing is worth 20 pts without a permanent AA solution? Take A'rd boyz and justify to an ork player why his carefully converted armored boyz are now demanding CP to be fed for a 5+ save, can you? The list goes on and on and equipment options should be buyable or integrated allready in points cost for the respective weapon, NOT a scenario in which your havoc champions runs back and forth between his lord and his squad to ask for permission to bloody use an AA rocket.

Not Online!!! wrote:
First off: 40k Is still a wargame, brought an all infantry list with no AT? don't be surprised when you get shelled out of the map.

Secondly: Take the missile launcher, tell me that thing is worth 20 pts without a permanent AA solution? Take A'rd boyz and justify to an ork player why his carefully converted armored boyz are now demanding CP to be fed for a 5+ save, can you? The list goes on and on and equipment options should be buyable or integrated allready in points cost for the respective weapon, NOT a scenario in which your havoc champions runs back and forth between his lord and his squad to ask for permission to bloody use an AA rocket.

*I personally think how much your list counters your opponent should matter relatively little, about as much as it matters now. Counter lists are fine, but I want to be able to have a game even if you brought a list that is built to counter mine or vice versa. You can definitely create things that are big enough counters that they completely shut down certain things.
*GW has no need to make rules for models they did not themselves create, they actually have an incentive to do the opposite to prevent other companies from supplying the Ard Boyz demand. The mistakes of previous editions should not be blamed on the design of the current edition, Ard Boyz should have never been a unit option.
*Flakk missiles used to be lower Strength and AP to make up for hitting 4 times as often as krak missiles, krak missiles now hit 3/4 times as often as the old flakk missile and retain their Strength and AP. I don't see why they need an in-built anti-flyer weapon? I don't believe the current cost of an option or unit should have any effect on the rules or suggested rules for that option or unit. If you want to balance something, balance the cost to the rules, not the rules to the cost. Rules should be changed for the purpose of thematics.
*I love Stratagems a whole lot, I think they speak a tonne more of the strategy in the game than simply building a list that has the highest win-rate out of any list you can build. I understand they are anti-thematic and it's perfectly reasonable to think that the loss of thematics is too big on some Stratagems, I just find that every Stratagem is another tool in your toolbox for being a better general and dealing with more situations. I don't really think that any Stratagem is much more or less thematic than any other, in every case they contain huge abstractions of what is actually going on, but I love the much higher degree of abstraction in 8th in favour of making the game gamier and simpler.

 vict0988 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
First off: 40k Is still a wargame, brought an all infantry list with no AT? don't be surprised when you get shelled out of the map.

Secondly: Take the missile launcher, tell me that thing is worth 20 pts without a permanent AA solution? Take A'rd boyz and justify to an ork player why his carefully converted armored boyz are now demanding CP to be fed for a 5+ save, can you? The list goes on and on and equipment options should be buyable or integrated allready in points cost for the respective weapon, NOT a scenario in which your havoc champions runs back and forth between his lord and his squad to ask for permission to bloody use an AA rocket.

*I personally think how much your list counters your opponent should matter relatively little, about as much as it matters now. Counter lists are fine, but I want to be able to have a game even if you brought a list that is built to counter mine or vice versa. You can definitely create things that are big enough counters that they completely shut down certain things.
*GW has no need to make rules for models they did not themselves create, they actually have an incentive to do the opposite to prevent other companies from supplying the Ard Boyz demand. The mistakes of previous editions should not be blamed on the design of the current edition, Ard Boyz should have never been a unit option.
*Flakk missiles used to be lower Strength and AP to make up for hitting 4 times as often as krak missiles, krak missiles now hit 3/4 times as often as the old flakk missile and retain their Strength and AP. I don't see why they need an in-built anti-flyer weapon? I don't believe the current cost of an option or unit should have any effect on the rules or suggested rules for that option or unit. If you want to balance something, balance the cost to the rules, not the rules to the cost. Rules should be changed for the purpose of thematics.
*I love Stratagems a whole lot, I think they speak a tonne more of the strategy in the game than simply building a list that has the highest win-rate out of any list you can build. I understand they are anti-thematic and it's perfectly reasonable to think that the loss of thematics is too big on some Stratagems, I just find that every Stratagem is another tool in your toolbox for being a better general and dealing with more situations. I don't really think that any Stratagem is much more or less thematic than any other, in every case they contain huge abstractions of what is actually going on, but I love the much higher degree of abstraction in 8th in favour of making the game gamier and simpler.

Ard boyz were an unit choice before from GW. As were armored IG ( grenadiers) etc.
Flakk missile statement is worthless in this consideration
Stratagems are not strategy in most cases. Double shooting invovles no strategic choice instead just an autoinclude. Rerrols on demand etc are the same. It is not strategic depth.