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I think it was a big mistake to remove force organization and replace it with the rule of three for non-battleline units. Now an Imperial Guard army can theoretically fill its 2000 pts (and even >3000 pts) with nothing but Leman Russes. Who needs Objective Control when you can just wipe your enemy off the table?

.

You've been able to build an entire army out of Russes since the start of 8th. 10th didn't remove force org, it removed the useless vestiges of a force org system from a game that was already limited by RO3 rather than force organization slots.

I much preferred how the old FOC forced armies to be at least somewhat well-rounded, and choose which toys you want most rather than just taking whatever you want, but in prior discussions on the topic people seem to prefer having greater freedom in listbuilding even if it means balance issues from skew.

You realize that between WD lists, GW screwing around with alt FOCs, squadron rules, the 8/9e detachment system, & each Russ being its own data sheet, that Armored Companies/tables full of Russ's have been a thing since 3rd edition, right?

So pick a 3e+ edition, I can spam Russ in all of them.
The only difference is which hoop I need to jump through to do it.

10th edition could probably do for some more list building restrictions, but moving past FOC was the right call

I'd potentially insist that a 2k points army has 2 characters and 3 battleline units in it but that's really it. With some allowances in detachments for making other units count towards that requirement.

 catbarf wrote:

I much preferred how the old FOC forced armies to be at least somewhat well-rounded, and choose which toys you want most rather than just taking whatever you want, but in prior discussions on the topic people seem to prefer having greater freedom in listbuilding even if it means balance issues from skew.

To me its always been one of those things that sounds better on paper than it was in practice. It just was this weird tax that impacted some lists more than others. The strongest stuff was generally whatever could meet the requirements with minimal investment or that could meet the requirement with optimal units. I think 10th lists tend to be less spam and more interesting overall, though that has more to do with units having rules and equipment that offers more diverse roles. Battleline could use some love, though GW seems to be realizing the need to give them more scenario rules to accomplish this.

I'm not particularly fond of the sort of lists I'm seeing, where there's no sort of backbone unit for the army, and just looks like the most powerful units in the Codex. Seeing a Space Marine list with few, if any, Intercessors, Tacticals, or similar "troops" style unit hurts me (obviously exceptions made for 1st company themed lists, but then, they should HAVE lots of 1st company squads instead, and so on).

That said, I also wasn't much of a fan of "take the cheapest troops I can find, and then load up on everything else" - looking at you, Scout Squads and Cultists.

I like Tyel's idea of "you must take XYZ Battleline", and I think it'd be even cooler if certain characters either unlocked, or required, certain units into being Battleline.
For example, a Phobos Captain turns Infiltrators into Battleline, and requires at least one Phobos Battleline unit. Or a Guardsman Tank Commander turns Leman Russes into Battleline, but strips it from Infantry Squads and so on.

Not totally true. Most marine armies have Scouts or Infiltrators, they just don't tend to have Intercessors. Making a rule that players have to take them might make you feel better, but it doesn't solve the inherent problem that Intercessors aren't worth taking. It just makes Marines worse.

To be clear though, part of the problem is that Intercessors don't really have a job to do. The role of cheap infantry that takes and holds objectives is filled by Scouts and Intercessors who you would absolutely perceive as Battleline in an army if Intercessors/Tacticals weren't presented as the baseline. They just don't perform a role that's needed.

The logic has always been that if you force everyone to take Battleline than their role is killing other Battleline, but that's really not the case. Green Tide is a big boogyman right now, but 60 Intercessors doesn't seem to be on anyone's list of counters because the core problem is simply that Intercessors do not have any functional role in the game. There aren't any good targets for them and there are better, more specialized units for their non-combat applications. That's the problem to solve.

Sad Old Git (soggy soggy soggy, Oi Oi Oi!) opinion?

The FoC was a great idea genuinely lacking in execution. Because not all Armies had an even distribution among the slots.

Tyranids for instance typically had an over stuffed and thus overly competitive Elite Unit count.

Such things lead to the utter banality of Mathammer. Where the restrictions were so restrictive? Armies became incredibly predictable. Even if your opponent wasn’t be a Beardy Git.

Certain options were simply a better investment, less dependant on overall synergy. And from there the banality arose. Because it all became about the inherently restricted Meta.

10th Ed? I think it’s a bold move. But I’m so far removed from relevant in-game knowledge, I couldn’t say if it’s working out for the better.

But it’s still, to my mind, inherently superior to Meta Gaming and Mathammer*

*without slighting those who enjoy such things. My hobby isn’t your hobby, and I respect your preference, because none of us are Doing It Wrong.

Tyel wrote:
I'd potentially insist that a 2k points army has 2 characters and 3 battleline units in it but that's really it. With some allowances in detachments for making other units count towards that requirement.

This gets brought up pretty often, but this really isnt balanced. Some armies have either dirt cheap or very strong battleline units that they'd wanna bring anyway, others would straight-up eat a tax.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I think it'd be even cooler if certain characters either unlocked, or required, certain units into being Battleline.
For example, a Phobos Captain turns Infiltrators into Battleline, and requires at least one Phobos Battleline unit. Or a Guardsman Tank Commander turns Leman Russes into Battleline, but strips it from Infantry Squads and so on.

Like the troupe master does for troupes (if he's the warlord)? I'd love if he also gave the benefits of being battleline to them too (+1 OC)

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I think it'd be even cooler if certain characters either unlocked, or required, certain units into being Battleline.
For example, a Phobos Captain turns Infiltrators into Battleline, and requires at least one Phobos Battleline unit. Or a Guardsman Tank Commander turns Leman Russes into Battleline, but strips it from Infantry Squads and so on.

Like the troupe master does for troupes (if he's the warlord)? I'd love if he also gave the benefits of being battleline to them too (+1 OC)

AOS 4th edition seems to be doing something similar to this, with corresponding characters to specific units in army building, and if this turns out to be something that works, i would love to see 40k try a take on that idea

Personally, I'm always leery of rules that bump how much of something you can take. They're almost always responsible for people buying stuff that doesn't survive an edition change or even a simple errata. I'd rather see armies sport a variety of stuff. Armies should have enough options where rule of 2 works and honestly one of the things that kept me fairly impressed with 10th edition is I haven't seen nearly as much 3x of things in the competitive lists.

I prefer it without FOC. As my group solely plays narrative games it's much easier to make more fun, themed lists. On the whole more fun for me now.

-Guardsman- wrote:
Now an Imperial Guard army can theoretically fill its 2000 pts (and even >3000 pts) with nothing but Leman Russes. Who needs Objective Control when you can just wipe your enemy off the table?

Right, because Russ Spam is totally dominating the tournament meta right now.

All of my armies are built a unit or two at a time based on an ongoing narrative- I start with 500 points, and Crusade from there.

I like the current system, because my narrative will never be limited by rules.

Having said that, I liked the detachment system of 8th and 9th because it was another role-playing tool; this detachment consists entirely of units recruited from the local population while that detachment was sent as reinforcements from faction HQ on a different planet... This creates tension in the story.

The old FOC (depending on edition) was sometimes restrictive enough to interfere with the narrative. Because I play with small circles of like-minded players, people were always okay house-ruling around it, but it always feels better the fewer houserules you have to create in order to tell the stories you want to tell.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I like Tyel's idea of "you must take XYZ Battleline", and I think it'd be even cooler if certain characters either unlocked, or required, certain units into being Battleline.
For example, a Phobos Captain turns Infiltrators into Battleline, and requires at least one Phobos Battleline unit. Or a Guardsman Tank Commander turns Leman Russes into Battleline, but strips it from Infantry Squads and so on.

I think HBMC has brought it up before, but with the current "structure" to the game no unit should have Battleline by default. Instead, it should be a USR (that gives +1 OC and allows you to take up to twice the usual cap of units) that is granted to specific units (either by a specific list, or by keyword) based on the detachment you select.

They should just go back to the old percentage based one. Up to 50% characters (but must have one), 25%+ troops, up to 50% support.

I like the current approach because it forces the designers to at least consider for every unit, why they should be taken (or why nobody takes them). It also feels more immersive for me as I can roleplay a little bit: what units perform the role my army needs filled, which combination works, etc.
I really disliked the detachment management from 8th or 9th edition. Worst example from one of my guard armies: these tanks are in this detachment and are Catachan, these Infanterie units in that detachment are Cadian, but these dudes here with the relic pistol are Valhallan. I get 18 CP

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sad Old Git (soggy soggy soggy, Oi Oi Oi!) opinion?

The FoC was a great idea genuinely lacking in execution. Because not all Armies had an even distribution among the slots.

Tyranids for instance typically had an over stuffed and thus overly competitive Elite Unit count.

Such things lead to the utter banality of Mathammer. Where the restrictions were so restrictive? Armies became incredibly predictable. Even if your opponent wasn’t be a Beardy Git.

Certain options were simply a better investment, less dependant on overall synergy. And from there the banality arose. Because it all became about the inherently restricted Meta.

10th Ed? I think it’s a bold move. But I’m so far removed from relevant in-game knowledge, I couldn’t say if it’s working out for the better.

But it’s still, to my mind, inherently superior to Meta Gaming and Mathammer*

*without slighting those who enjoy such things. My hobby isn’t your hobby, and I respect your preference, because none of us are Doing It Wrong.

I'd argue meta gaming and math hammer got easier, we're in the 3rd edition of functionally "bring whatever you like as long as it's no more than 3 duplicates" and the removal of limitations means there is no negative to simply stacking the mathematically best options. It might open up more freedom to how you get to "mathematically best" but rather than working out the 3 best elites and figuring out what else to include it's now simply a priority shopping list and take what you like, whereas the old FOC at least encouraged you try and balance out those selections by having to take the other stuff to some degree.

We did the same thing as with the FoC. We still took what was mathematically the best and spent as little as possible on a FOC tax. The tax would vary faction by faction and those with the lowest tax (as they all were not equal) tended to be a bit more efficient.

I dunno. FoC or not, cheese is gonna cheese.

Even tournament added restrictions only change what Cheese looks like - it doesn’t eliminate it entirely.

But, I’m gonna make the argument that when your Cheese Options are limited to Cheddar, Stilton or Brie? You run into more problems of meta gaming compared to a full board of Cheddar, Stilton, Brie, Dairylea, Camembert, Wensleydale, Cornish Cruncher, Stinking Bishop and so on.

Consider the Eldar between 3rd and…erm….8th(?). For a long time, Eldar could field a top notch army of beardy cheese. But only in very set, very limited ways. Deviate from those, and each Eldar Codex was average at best. Now some of that was down to the wider rule set. But the FoC also enforced it, because your overall options were so limited.

Now? At least in theory everyone can spam to the same degree, which means metagaming becomes trickier, as there are far more variables to consider in what used to be Rock Paper Scissors.

Tyranids in particular should be a lot of fun, because none of my units are competing for slots - just points. So I can now field two Lictors, two Warrior Broods and some Hiveguard, where before I typically couldn’t, as at times all three have been in the Elites slot.

I think it comes down to what exactly you're looking for in a given game session.

If I'm looking for some quick midweek fun after work then I'll pick something like 40k or LotR where there is the bare minimum of restrictions on army building. I'll grab a box of models and go ham.

If I've got more time and am looking to make a day of it with more consideration in what I'm bringing and what playstyle I want to go for then it's something like HH. Here I'll make every effort to make sure my list is exactly what is modelled and to fill the roles I need for the army.

Both are good, but neither is particularly better in any major sense. Different is good in and of itself.