Latest posts for the thread "Mixing factions and command points"

Mixing factions and command points

Volkmair — GMT

With the various faction soup ideas floating around and the advantage it gives forces like the Imperium and Chaos what do people think of having each detachment that is not the same faction as your main detachment not give command points even if its from the same army.

For example if I had an Ultramarine Battalion (3) and a Ultramarine Vanguard (1) I would get 7 command points but if I had an Ultramarine Battalion (3) and a Salamanders Vanguard (1) I would only get 6 as the Salamanders don't add their command points.

You can still have soup armies with this but a single faction army gets more command points as they are better at working together. It probably shouldn't lock out the use of the other factions stratagems as the other detachments will need them but you get less command points to play with.

Mixing factions and command points

skchsan — GMT

Volkmair wrote:
With the various faction soup ideas floating around and the advantage it gives forces like the Imperium and Chaos what do people think of having each detachment that is not the same faction as your main detachment not give command points even if its from the same army.

For example if I had an Ultramarine Battalion (3) and a Ultramarine Vanguard (1) I would get 7 command points but if I had an Ultramarine Battalion (3) and a Salamanders Vanguard (1) I would only get 6 as the Salamanders don't add their command points.

You can still have soup armies with this but a single faction army gets more command points as they are better at working together. It probably shouldn't lock out the use of the other factions stratagems as the other detachments will need them but you get less command points to play with.

What happens if the different "factions" clock in at same number of points?

Mixing factions and command points

Volkmair — GMT

skchsan wrote:

What happens if the different "factions" clock in at same number of points?

You'd just pick the one you want to be your main faction.

Mixing factions and command points

ChargerIIC — GMT

What if both are 'Imperial' detachments?

Mixing factions and command points

Volkmair — GMT

ChargerIIC wrote:
What if both are 'Imperial' detachments?

Well as they are both the same faction you would get the command points but unless they at some point add 'Imperial' faction abilities or stratagems you would't get any faction bonuses as you haven't specified a faction that gives any bonuses like Ultramarines or Cadians.

Mixing factions and command points

skchsan — GMT

Volkmair wrote:
ChargerIIC wrote:
What if both are 'Imperial' detachments?

Well as they are both the same faction you would get the command points but unless they at some point add 'Imperial' faction abilities or stratagems you would't get any faction bonuses as you haven't specified a faction that gives any bonuses like Ultramarines or Cadians.

I'm not understanding what you're trying to achieve. What is the end goal of limiting CP's? Do you feel that imperial soup is too "OP"?

Mixing factions and command points

Volkmair — GMT

skchsan wrote:
I'm not understanding what you're trying to achieve. What is the end goal of limiting CP's? Do you feel that imperial soup is too "OP"?

I'm not sure if the soup is over powered but I'd like to see a benefit for staying within one faction rather than stacking bonuses. And in background terms even if 2 factions are the same force like Cadia and Tallarn they won't work as well together as 2 Cadian detachments due to differences in how they operate etc.

Mixing factions and command points

skchsan — GMT

Volkmair wrote:
I'm not sure if the soup is over powered but I'd like to see a benefit for staying within one faction rather than stacking bonuses. And in background terms even if 2 factions are the same force like Cadia and Tallarn they won't work as well together as 2 Cadian detachments due to differences in how they operate etc.

Weakness of soups is that buffing units can only affect those who are under same 'sub-factions' within 'imperium' keyword anyways. This in itself serves as a penalty for mix-matching and not going full single faction.

Imposing another penalty in the form of reduced CP seems redundant and discouraging to the liberty of list making, while failing to provide direct benefits to single factioned armies.

Mixing factions and command points

Waaaghpower — GMT

skchsan wrote:
Volkmair wrote:
I'm not sure if the soup is over powered but I'd like to see a benefit for staying within one faction rather than stacking bonuses. And in background terms even if 2 factions are the same force like Cadia and Tallarn they won't work as well together as 2 Cadian detachments due to differences in how they operate etc.

Weakness of soups is that buffing units can only affect those who are under same 'sub-factions' within 'imperium' keyword anyways. This in itself serves as a penalty for mix-matching and not going full single faction.

Imposing another penalty in the form of reduced CP seems redundant and discouraging to the liberty of list making, while failing to provide direct benefits to single factioned armies.

That 'Weakness' doesn't really seem to be doing much, especially when you consider models like Guilliman or Celestine, who are worth taking in pretty much ANY Imperial army, or units like Conscripts who (even after the Commisar nerfhammer) are still worth spamming for the sake of getting cheap screens. Or I can just take units that don't care about buffs and/or wouldn't be getting them anyways.

Mixing factions and command points

skchsan — GMT

Waaaghpower wrote:
That 'Weakness' doesn't really seem to be doing much, especially when you consider models like Guilliman or Celestine, who are worth taking in pretty much ANY Imperial army, or units like Conscripts who (even after the Commisar nerfhammer) are still worth spamming for the sake of getting cheap screens. Or I can just take units that don't care about buffs and/or wouldn't be getting them anyways.

I agree with you on that. Units like them should always be slotted under lord of war, and they should only be able to be taken under a separate Lord of War detachment with -1 CP and only 1 LoW per detachment. The super-heavy detachment CP bonus really isn't justifiable considering what they bring to the table at their cost.

You're telling me you get to bring three baneblades AND get 3 CP's? Please.

I guess the best solution is keeping the current super-heavy detachment with +0 CP to maintain a middle ground with the anti-LoW players and current LoW owners.

Mixing factions and command points

Waaaghpower — GMT

skchsan wrote:
Waaaghpower wrote:
That 'Weakness' doesn't really seem to be doing much, especially when you consider models like Guilliman or Celestine, who are worth taking in pretty much ANY Imperial army, or units like Conscripts who (even after the Commisar nerfhammer) are still worth spamming for the sake of getting cheap screens. Or I can just take units that don't care about buffs and/or wouldn't be getting them anyways.

I agree with you on that. Units like them should always be slotted under lord of war, and they should only be able to be taken under a separate Lord of War detachment with -1 CP and only 1 LoW per detachment. The super-heavy detachment CP bonus really isn't justifiable considering what they bring to the table at their cost.

I guess the best solution is keeping the current super-heavy detachment with +0 CP to maintain a middle ground with the anti-LoW players and current LoW owners.

I disagree with you there. The problem with Lords of War won't be solved by that - Nobody investing 3/4ths of their army into Lords of War is actually needing that kind of penalty (Magnus+Morty Tagteams would still need an extra Renegade Knight or other super heavy in order to get that, and not many lists featuring that combo actually take a third Super Heavy. There aren't really any other tournament-level strong lists that spam super heavies, at least to my knowledge.)
Guilliman, meanwhile, won't be fixed because he gives 3 Command Points all on his own - Is this too powerful? Yes! Absolutely! But you'd just be cutting it down to 2 free Command Points.

Most other super-heavies don't need that nerf.

Mixing factions and command points

Wyldhunt — GMT

I think context is important when it comes to this topic. Are we talking about tournament play? Matched play in general? All forms of 40k?

When it comes to tournament play, soup armies do have something of an advantage over armies like 'crons or orks that can't ally with anyone at all. Sure, you can't spread your buffs around as easily as with mono-faction, but tournament players tend to take that into account when designing lists to the point that it's not really an issue.

If we want to intentionally remove the advantage of soup armies over mono faction armies in tournament play, I think we should consider simply making mono-faction a requirement for certain tournament formats. You'd probably want to make exceptions for tiny factions like custodes, Deathwatch, maybe harlequins, etc.

Pushing around CP amounts seems like a sort of awkward attempt at mitigating the soup versus soupless disparity rather than addressing it directly.

In non-tournament games, I think it's actually quite fluffy to be able to use sub-faction specific rules. I love that people can have their stalwart guardsmen serving as an anvil while their sneaky marines serve as an infiltraitng hammer. If it isn't a tournament, you should be able to avoid "cheese" lists that abuse the advantages of being soup.

Mixing factions and command points

ChargerIIC — GMT

At that point, why not insist everyone play only space marines? It'd be a hell a lot easier to balance.

Mixing factions and command points

Cream Tea — GMT

GW are pushing "soup" because they want to encourage people branching out and buying models from different factions as well as multiple codices. Allies in 7th was the same thing, as were and are Ynnari. Profit is more important than game balance.

Of course you can't give people the option to mix and match any Imperium models and expect things to turn out hunky dory. That amount of options is unhealthy. By the same note, how are you going to balance Craftworld Eldar, Dark Eldar and Harlequins while at the same time making Ynnari balanced? Almost impossible.

ChargerIIC wrote:
At that point, why not insist everyone play only space marines? It'd be a hell a lot easier to balance.

I suspect there are people who would like that. Ugh.

Re:Mixing factions and command points

skchsan — GMT

I think the best solution here is rather than soups affecting the number of CP's, it should affect the strategems you can use.

If you have imperial soup, the most dominant subfaction would be your primary 'faction' for the purpses of determining which stragem 'family' you can use. For example, if your army consists of 20% Ultramarine, 10% Ravenguard, 10% Imperial Fist, 10% Dark Angels, 10% White Scars, 15% Cadian, 10% Catachan, 5% MT, and 10% AdMech, then you can only use the stragems for Adeptus Astartes, Ultramarines, and the generic from the index (which are mostly re-written in the codex).

So this way, everyone can mix and match to create their soup, but can't have the 'oomph' factor from all the different ingredients in the soup.

Mixing factions and command points

gwarsh41 — GMT

Soup armies are a great way to make custom chapters, and allow us to, for the first time, field 100% unique chapters at the cost of stratagems.

I do think it's a bit like GW is suggesting we use soup armies to game the system. Especially as a chaos player. If I bring a battleforged army with a deathguard battalion and then a little baby CSM vanguard or something, I can use all the CSM stratagems on my death guard, which is awesome. If stratagems were limited to the codex/detachment you brought, it would be a decent solution.

I don't want the people who bring fluffy soup armies to be punished to the point that they no longer want to play the army they have been dreaming of.

Mixing factions and command points

Volkmair — GMT

gwarsh41 wrote:
I don't want the people who bring fluffy soup armies to be punished to the point that they no longer want to play the army they have been dreaming of.

That's a fair enough point though I'm not sure if the reduction in command points makes a force unplayable. I'd still like there to be a proper choice between staying one faction rather than just picking the best stuff from several different ones.

Re:Mixing factions and command points

Eldar Shortseer — GMT

What about:
In any army, you have to pick a detachment that gives full CPs; other detachments contribute 0 or half (round down) normal CPs. If you take a command vehicle, you get full CPs for all detachments.

Of course, not every faction has command vehicles but soup seems to be mainly an Imperium option, with Eldar and Chaos in “second place”. Ynnari already have to pay the HQ tax; with SFD not being an auto pick for CW perhaps Ynnari HQ also gives full CPs? Not sure what Chaos’s answer would be.

Re:Mixing factions and command points

skchsan — GMT

Eldar Shortseer wrote:
What about:
In any army, you have to pick a detachment that gives full CPs; other detachments contribute 0 or half (round down) normal CPs. If you take a command vehicle, you get full CPs for all detachments.

Of course, not every faction has command vehicles but soup seems to be mainly an Imperium option, with Eldar and Chaos in “second place”. Ynnari already have to pay the HQ tax; with SFD not being an auto pick for CW perhaps Ynnari HQ also gives full CPs? Not sure what Chaos’s answer would be.

Too case-by-case specific and potentially one-sided deal.

Re:Mixing factions and command points

Eldar Shortseer — GMT

skchsan wrote:
Eldar Shortseer wrote:
What about:
In any army, you have to pick a detachment that gives full CPs; other detachments contribute 0 or half (round down) normal CPs. If you take a command vehicle, you get full CPs for all detachments.

Of course, not every faction has command vehicles but soup seems to be mainly an Imperium option, with Eldar and Chaos in “second place”. Ynnari already have to pay the HQ tax; with SFD not being an auto pick for CW perhaps Ynnari HQ also gives full CPs? Not sure what Chaos’s answer would be.

Too case-by-case specific and potentially one-sided deal.

Obviously a rough idea, but you could add a CIC or COMMANDER keyword to specific units, or even potentially equipment or detachments. (Dammit, you’d have to give it to Bobby G, wouldn’t you? Even more imba!)

It is intended to be one-sided, in order to close the gap for the mono factions without ruining (just taming) Human (and elf) mix-and-match advantage.

But just an idea...it might not actually fix the problem, if there really is a significant problem.