CP regeneration. Degenerate or Ok?

[Captain Idaho]

The only small factions with their own Codex books are Knights and Custodes, both of which do perfectly fine solo and wouldn't suffer under the changes I proposed. In fact it's partly those factions causing much of the problems in competitive play.

[Finkmilkana]

Well yeah, the lack of a codex is exactly what exaberates the problem for the small factions. Besides, I haven’t seen any pure Custodes list doing even remotely well competitively (doesn’t mean that no one has done it, just haven’t seen any). Meanwhile, the “problematic” thing about Custodes (supreme command detachment of jet captains) would not be hurt much by restricting command point generation to primary faction only, as that one command point doesn’t matter either way.

Knights on their own can dominate casual games, but are again completely outclassed competitively. Heck, just a few slamcaptains can singlehandedly destroy most pure knight lists. The “problematic” knight thing again is just 1 to 3 knights mixed into another army, which again wouldn’t care about CP being generated only by the other detachments, as those generate the bulk either way.

 

Besides small factions (when played as the main army instead of as cherry picked allies), the main “victims” of restricting CP generation would probably be space marine armies that mix in some guard to make up for their terrible troops. The solution here seems to buff tacticals so it becomes worth it to take more than 3 min squads instead of restricting CP generation. Besides the CP Regen relic/WL trait, the main reason people use CP batteries is because their own troops suck and they want to spend as few points as possible on them.

[PiñaColada]

I think this comes down to a lot people want to see change but few will concede any advantage they currently have through the system. I'm not referring to you specifically here Finkmilkana, this is more a general feeling I've gotten when talking to people about it. My own suggestions would hurt my own armies quite a bit potentially but I genuinely feel they would balance up some of the issues with the game.
One can argue that the reason we don't see pure custodes do well in tournaments is that there's no need to really even try that. Since there's effectively no drawback whatsoever to add 180-200 points of Guard for those extra command points, CP generation, cheap objective holders and deepstrike denial. It boils down to the fact that since there are no real drawbacks, why wouldn't you? Restrict CP and you still get cheap bodies for board control and the advantages that bring but no CP so now there's actual thought required as to whether it's worth it.
I really don't think this destroy that faction at all, it would take some time getting use to "only" having 8CP I guess but that is still a fairly significant amount to play around with.

 

Also, this solution would hit one of my primary armies, Imperial Knights, really hard. I completely disagree when you say that the CP wouldn't be a big deal for them. The knights need to be drowning in CP as many players burn 6CP before the game even begins. Then expensive rotate ion shields/order of companions/full tilt etc will evaporate the rest of them. 
You say that the big problems aren't "pure" knight lists but 1-3 mixed into another army but if we had the primary faction rule I suggested earlier any army with 3 knights would automatically have IK as their primary faction.

If someone has a single knight in a S.H.A.D. it wouldn't affect that but I'm not sure it needs to? Also the Supreme Command detachment is a big cheese force multiplier in my opinion and should simply be removed. I understand that opinion will ruffle some feathers (same as with my primary faction suggestion) but any detachment can take 2HQ's except for the batallion that can take 3 or the brigade that can take 5! No-one needs that detachment but it's used to slot in 3 daemon princes tzeentch/custodes shield captains on jetbikes etc. Remove that option and hopefully we have to see fewer nerfs on those specific units for people who use them "normally" (meaning in moderation, though they might still have to be nerfed, just not to the same extent). 

[Beams]

Of course it doesn't punish elite armies. My suggested fixes makes it do elites armies (without soup) have more units that benefit from the CP available. Those Guardsmen supporting the Custodes get no additional benefits, being purely supportive numbers and guns to the (let me guess) 3 Jetbiker Captains you take.

 

You want an Inquisitor army? Then take one. All the mixes of units are your benefits over my pure force. If you want all the CPs then take the Primary Detatchment for an army that can use them.

 

Tough luck. Why should everyone suffer because you want an Inquisitor Warlord?

I've never taken Custodes, nor blood angels. I play sisters of battle, Inquisition and sometimes guard.

 

How is it fair that we completely gut the inqusition faction because some people take a couple of Guardsmen?

 

A much more elegant fix is putting guard in a platoon structure. You want the Kurobs aquilla and guard warlord trait? Okay, your going to have to take three platoons and two hqs for that, each platoon being at least three infantry squads and a platoon commander like it was in 7th.

 

And honestly, allies are necessary. We play in a stupidly psyker heavy meta, and I play sisters of battle. Sure I have a 50% chance to block a single power, but then I get smited and mind bulleted off the table without even getting a save. Without, at the very least, an Inquistor or a Primaris Psyker or a detachment of Sisters of Silence the games just aren't fun, since I don't get to play so much as remove models from the table.

 

Capping my already limited strategems because I want to be able to play with everyone else is just going to force anyone in my position to play a more powerful army, instead of a more fluffy army.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

Of course it doesn't punish elite armies. My suggested fixes makes it do elites armies (without soup) have more units that benefit from the CP available. Those Guardsmen supporting the Custodes get no additional benefits, being purely supportive numbers and guns to the (let me guess) 3 Jetbiker Captains you take.

 

You want an Inquisitor army? Then take one. All the mixes of units are your benefits over my pure force. If you want all the CPs then take the Primary Detatchment for an army that can use them.

 

Tough luck. Why should everyone suffer because you want an Inquisitor Warlord?

I've never taken Custodes, nor blood angels. I play sisters of battle, Inquisition and sometimes guard.

 

How is it fair that we completely gut the inqusition faction because some people take a couple of Guardsmen?

 

A much more elegant fix is putting guard in a platoon structure. You want the Kurobs aquilla and guard warlord trait? Okay, your going to have to take three platoons and two hqs for that, each platoon being at least three infantry squads and a platoon commander like it was in 7th.

 

And honestly, allies are necessary. We play in a stupidly psyker heavy meta, and I play sisters of battle. Sure I have a 50% chance to block a single power, but then I get smited and mind bulleted off the table without even getting a save. Without, at the very least, an Inquistor or a Primaris Psyker or a detachment of Sisters of Silence the games just aren't fun, since I don't get to play so much as remove models from the table.

 

Capping my already limited strategems because I want to be able to play with everyone else is just going to force anyone in my position to play a more powerful army, instead of a more fluffy army.

I’m in agreement with you on most things but (unless I’m misunderstanding you) requiring a guard army to field 180 infantry models if they want to run a brigade on their own is not a reasonable or fair requirement by anyone’s standards.

[sarabando]

i havnt played 40 since 5th edition XD all this CP and stratgems talks is like greek to me i have no idea whats going on :S

[Captain Idaho]

 

Of course it doesn't punish elite armies. My suggested fixes makes it do elites armies (without soup) have more units that benefit from the CP available. Those Guardsmen supporting the Custodes get no additional benefits, being purely supportive numbers and guns to the (let me guess) 3 Jetbiker Captains you take.

You want an Inquisitor army? Then take one. All the mixes of units are your benefits over my pure force. If you want all the CPs then take the Primary Detatchment for an army that can use them.

Tough luck. Why should everyone suffer because you want an Inquisitor Warlord?

I've never taken Custodes, nor blood angels. I play sisters of battle, Inquisition and sometimes guard.

How is it fair that we completely gut the inqusition faction because some people take a couple of Guardsmen?

A much more elegant fix is putting guard in a platoon structure. You want the Kurobs aquilla and guard warlord trait? Okay, your going to have to take three platoons and two hqs for that, each platoon being at least three infantry squads and a platoon commander like it was in 7th.

And honestly, allies are necessary. We play in a stupidly psyker heavy meta, and I play sisters of battle. Sure I have a 50% chance to block a single power, but then I get smited and mind bulleted off the table without even getting a save. Without, at the very least, an Inquistor or a Primaris Psyker or a detachment of Sisters of Silence the games just aren't fun, since I don't get to play so much as remove models from the table.

Capping my already limited strategems because I want to be able to play with everyone else is just going to force anyone in my position to play a more powerful army, instead of a more fluffy army.

You're an exception rather than the rule. If you play a niche army how can you rationally and objectively expect the balance of the entire game and every faction to be compromised because of a tiny minority?

 

And besides, Inquisitors and Sisters don't have a Codex so of course they don't have rules comparable to other armies.

 

Who knows, Inquisitors might get a new dataslate saying they can adopt the faction rules of the army they are in. That solves the problem.

[Beams]

 

 

Of course it doesn't punish elite armies. My suggested fixes makes it do elites armies (without soup) have more units that benefit from the CP available. Those Guardsmen supporting the Custodes get no additional benefits, being purely supportive numbers and guns to the (let me guess) 3 Jetbiker Captains you take.

You want an Inquisitor army? Then take one. All the mixes of units are your benefits over my pure force. If you want all the CPs then take the Primary Detatchment for an army that can use them.

Tough luck. Why should everyone suffer because you want an Inquisitor Warlord?

I've never taken Custodes, nor blood angels. I play sisters of battle, Inquisition and sometimes guard.

How is it fair that we completely gut the inqusition faction because some people take a couple of Guardsmen?

A much more elegant fix is putting guard in a platoon structure. You want the Kurobs aquilla and guard warlord trait? Okay, your going to have to take three platoons and two hqs for that, each platoon being at least three infantry squads and a platoon commander like it was in 7th.

And honestly, allies are necessary. We play in a stupidly psyker heavy meta, and I play sisters of battle. Sure I have a 50% chance to block a single power, but then I get smited and mind bulleted off the table without even getting a save. Without, at the very least, an Inquistor or a Primaris Psyker or a detachment of Sisters of Silence the games just aren't fun, since I don't get to play so much as remove models from the table.

Capping my already limited strategems because I want to be able to play with everyone else is just going to force anyone in my position to play a more powerful army, instead of a more fluffy army.

You're an exception rather than the rule. If you play a niche army how can you rationally and objectively expect the balance of the entire game and every faction to be compromised because of a tiny minority?

 

And besides, Inquisitors and Sisters don't have a Codex so of course they don't have rules comparable to other armies.

 

Who knows, Inquisitors might get a new dataslate saying they can adopt the faction rules of the army they are in. That solves the problem.

I may be an exception, but there's a lot of people who play lists like that, and we shouldn't make broad sweeping changes to limit what is an abused tournament level play strategy that will allow those players to move onto the next most abusable list. If we keep this strategy of hard-fixing any issues, we end up in a lot of situations where "niche" armies stop being able to exist.

 

The rule of 3 to fix flyrants spam? That made it near impossible to run any lists I had made previously. Sisters have 2 HQs, one is a unique character. Guess I have to run allies if I want three detachments for any reason.

 

The rule of nonimperiun detachments only? I have to go out and by an extra box on silent sisters since I need three squads of them. Can't lead them with an Inquisitor, so now I need to spend two detachments just to get a psyker defense. God help me, I used to run a Culexus, but now that's all three of my detachments.

 

No turn 1 deepstrike? Great, GK have a much harder time, as does our excluaive-scion player. Both already struggled this edition, but now it's even harder.

 

We used to see Assassin's relatively frequently in our meta, they helped snipe support characters or deepstrike in and cause havok, but all the above changes made them basically untakable.

 

This would also hit knights hard, as a lot of them rely on their strategems, like Rotate ion shields or machine spirit resurgent, to survive and pull their weight. Now players will have to decide if their 500 pt model has access to strategems or their 1250 pts of infantry have theirs.

 

So yeah, I play a niche army, but so do a lot of people, and these rules will affect them worse than anybody else.

[Captain Idaho]

The numbers are against you. There are Sisters players and you're getting a new Codex complete with new models next year. That's more than what most armies get as most didn't get any new models with their Codex books.

 

Assassins are relevant. Take them in an Auxiliary and you're away. Don't want to spend the CP? Well that's tough because it's a requirement else you mix it in a different faction Imperial detachment.

 

The majority of people would benefit from decent changes and because you take Sisters we all need to wait and put up with it? Yeah not a strong argument.

 

As for tournament players dictating the direction of the game... this is the argument people made to defend their horrific lists every time and it doesn't hold water. Playing casual games against powerful lists is common and the balance should be there.

 

If you're a casual player then why don't you say to your casual opponent "I know I don't get the Stratagems for these units in a normal Matched Play but do you mind it if we continue as if that wasn't the case?"

 

Or say "hey why don't we play narrative with points. I like spamming things for fluff."

[Beams]

The numbers are against you. There are Sisters players and you're getting a new Codex complete with new models next year. That's more than what most armies get as most didn't get any new models with their Codex books.

 

Assassins are relevant. Take them in an Auxiliary and you're away. Don't want to spend the CP? Well that's tough because it's a requirement else you mix it in a different faction Imperial detachment.

 

The majority of people would benefit from decent changes and because you take Sisters we all need to wait and put up with it? Yeah not a strong argument.

 

As for tournament players dictating the direction of the game... this is the argument people made to defend their horrific lists every time and it doesn't hold water. Playing casual games against powerful lists is common and the balance should be there.

 

If you're a casual player then why don't you say to your casual opponent "I know I don't get the Stratagems for these units in a normal Matched Play but do you mind it if we continue as if that wasn't the case?"

 

Or say "hey why don't we play narrative with points. I like spamming things for fluff."

Did I ever say I like spamming things for fluff? All I said was that with 1 HQ and 1 unique model sisters are limited in their capacity to fill out detachments.

 

Knights are primarily an allied army, should they not get their strategems because you don't want to deal with guard command batteries?

 

There are better ways to fix this, such as removing regeneration of CPS, or limiting it to once a turn, than outright disabling some armies.

[snorkle]

The issue seems to be that the way CP currently works is unfluffy in our eyes. In that case would it make sense to have two separate CP values? One for Matched/Tournament and another for Narrative? We already have rules that limit us in the way we spam units/psychic powers depending on which mode we play.

[Finkmilkana]

I think this comes down to a lot people want to see change but few will concede any advantage they currently have through the system. I'm not referring to you specifically here Finkmilkana, this is more a general feeling I've gotten when talking to people about it. My own suggestions would hurt my own armies quite a bit potentially but I genuinely feel they would balance up some of the issues with the game.

I'm actually not arguing against it because I would concede any competitive advantage (my main tournament list would loose 3 of its 16 CP, not really a big deal, but could switch out its helverines for something more useful without loosing additional CP). My list might even do better on average with some other lists nerfed. Some of my fluffy lists would admittedly be hurt though, which is why I'm saying the wrong kinds of lists would suffer most.

 

One can argue that the reason we don't see pure custodes do well in tournaments is that there's no need to really even try that. Since there's effectively no drawback whatsoever to add 180-200 points of Guard for those extra command points, CP generation, cheap objective holders and deepstrike denial. It boils down to the fact that since there are no real drawbacks, why wouldn't you? Restrict CP and you still get cheap bodies for board control and the advantages that bring but no CP so now there's actual thought required as to whether it's worth it.

I really don't think this destroy that faction at all, it would take some time getting use to "only" having 8CP I guess but that is still a fairly significant amount to play around with.

On the flip side, one can argue that the reason why custodes bring guard bodies is because they need to. Sure, you could still bring the bodies without getting CP, but now you have an elite army (+the required bodies) competing against armies that have both good punchy units, cheap bodies and a lot more CP (be they tyranids, DE or the guy who smartly brought 1001 points of guard and 999 points of custodes). Does that really seem any more balanced or, for that matter, fun to play?

 

 

Also, this solution would hit one of my primary armies, Imperial Knights, really hard. I completely disagree when you say that the CP wouldn't be a big deal for them. The knights need to be drowning in CP as many players burn 6CP before the game even begins. Then expensive rotate ion shields/order of companions/full tilt etc will evaporate the rest of them. 

You say that the big problems aren't "pure" knight lists but 1-3 mixed into another army but if we had the primary faction rule I suggested earlier any army with 3 knights would automatically have IK as their primary faction.

Only if its 3 larger knights. 1-2 normal/big + 1-2 helverins is below 1000 points (in a 1750 game you would only get 1 non-armiger knight obviously). And knights are more powerful with just 1 big knight either way, since only one knight can get the 3++ against shooting/the house raven stratagem. With your proposed change, we would be seeing even more single Knights, which would still have enough CP to spam all stratagems. The main difference this rule would lead to is that instead of taking any army they want and a small guard battery, players would be forced to play an army that can get at least 2 battalions with good units (i.e. not tactical marines) and then sprinkle in <1000 points of whatever they actually want to play. Would it nerf some of the current top competitive lists? Absolutely, but many others would not care. Would it lead to less souping? Not in the intended way. It would just change the soups composition or make everything that cant get 2-3 battalions with good units on their own unviable.

The only way I could see restricting command points to the main faction work is if first every army could generate roughly the same amount of CP. But then less people would feel the need to take guard batteries in the first place.

[Captain Idaho]

Did I ever say I like spamming things for fluff? All I said was that with 1 HQ and 1 unique model sisters are limited in their capacity to fill out detachments.

Knights are primarily an allied army, should they not get their strategems because you don't want to deal with guard command batteries?

There are better ways to fix this, such as removing regeneration of CPS, or limiting it to once a turn, than outright disabling some armies.

Answering your points:

 

1) I never said it was you spamming choices.

 

2) should Knights as an allied choice go without their Strategums and Relics? Um yes. That's been my position. If you want to add a Superheavie to your army that you don't have access in the Codex that should be the price you pay for such flexibility. The focus should be your main primary faction.

 

3) How will removing or limiting regeneration of CPs going to stop soup lists? The power in your mixed army comes from the unusual selection of units not Stratagems. Or at least it should.

[Beams]

 

Did I ever say I like spamming things for fluff? All I said was that with 1 HQ and 1 unique model sisters are limited in their capacity to fill out detachments.

Knights are primarily an allied army, should they not get their strategems because you don't want to deal with guard command batteries?

There are better ways to fix this, such as removing regeneration of CPS, or limiting it to once a turn, than outright disabling some armies.

Answering your points:

 

1) I never said it was you spamming choices.

 

2) should Knights as an allied choice go without their Strategums and Relics? Um yes. That's been my position. If you want to add a Superheavie to your army that you don't have access in the Codex that should be the price you pay for such flexibility. The focus should be your main primary faction.

 

3) How will removing or limiting regeneration of CPs going to stop soup lists? The power in your mixed army comes from the unusual selection of units not Stratagems. Or at least it should.

The problem people are seeing is usually along the lines of Blood Angels with near limitless command points or Custodes with the same.

 

If the problem was people taking bodies, you wouldn't just see "The Loyal 32" that is basically omnipresent in tournament Imperial lists.

[Finkmilkana]

2) should Knights as an allied choice go without their Strategums and Relics? Um yes. That's been my position. If you want to add a Superheavie to your army that you don't have access in the Codex that should be the price you pay for such flexibility. The focus should be your main primary faction.

If every army had about the same amount of inherent flexibility of unit choices I would agree. Since they do not, this would just amount to small factions not having nearly as much flexibility as large factions. I mean, it would still be fine if the small factions instead were hyper-specialized and could do something specific better than the large factions. But that’s not how GW seems to balance the game. An inquisition “Elite” is not any better than a space marine elite just because inquisition only has elites. It also would probably not be a good way to balance the game, as it might lead to extreme faction wide“rock/paper/scissor” syndrome. For a balanced game, any faction (not unit or list!) needs to be able to handle any threat.

[Captain Idaho]

GW balance the Codex books without the inclusion of allies. They do it on the assumption the Codex is standalone.

[Finkmilkana]

They may or may not try to (considering there are stratagems that require souping and they specifically made knights work as SHAD, it’s apparent that they don’t ignore mixed list). But either way, what their intentions are doesn’t change that the smaller codices are currently inherently less flexible and most don’t work alone competitively. Forcing everyone to a single codex right now is less balanced than allowing souping. Many of the current top armies are mono codex Xenos lists, while many (not all) imperial factions need to soup to keep up.

[Captain Idaho]

That's not true. All Knights and Custodes armies are powerful. Against other, non-soup broken lists they're still really hard to beat.

 

There's only 1 other Mini-Codex army and that's Harlequins and they're doing fine.

[Raven1]

Well maybe some changes they made in Killtram will make their way into 40k. A set number of command points or basic ways to generate them and they generate every turn and you can bank them from turn to turn. So you are only doing 1 or 2 stratagems per turn with minimal ways to regenerate them. As opposed to having some with a near infinite amount of CP to do umpteen strategems.

[Beams]

GW balance the Codex books without the inclusion of allies. They do it on the assumption the Codex is standalone.

If they did that, then they wouldn't release ally factions , such as Silent Sisters, Knights, Assassins and Inquisitors.

[Finkmilkana]

Knights are only hard to beat for some lists because they skew hard with all T8. They are great if you want to stomp casual lists, but won’t win you any tournaments. Well, unless you get very lucky with your opponents, but that’s true for any skew list.

I honestly have not seen any pure Custodes list (or any “Custodes” list that took more than jet-captains) doing well, ever. Though I have to admit I also haven’t seen many (which might be correlated ;) ).

I would honestly be interested what pure Custodes (or DW /GK, i.e any small elite army) list would be competetive, but I think that would kinda go beyond this thread and is a discussion for another time.

I feel I have by now said pretty much everything I have to say on the topic of CP regeneration/restriction and are only repeating myself/softly derailing it into a competitiveness discussion. So better bow out of the discussion until I have something new to say on topic.

[Captain Idaho]

 

GW balance the Codex books without the inclusion of allies. They do it on the assumption the Codex is standalone.

If they did that, then they wouldn't release ally factions , such as Silent Sisters, Knights, Assassins and Inquisitors.

 

That's the point, the ally factions you mentioned aren't balanced ALLYING with main factions. Hence why the game is broken to the point where an army with allies is so powerful vs those without.

 

Knights are only hard to beat for some lists because they skew hard with all T8. They are great if you want to stomp casual lists, but won’t win you any tournaments. Well, unless you get very lucky with your opponents, but that’s true for any skew list.

I honestly have not seen any pure Custodes list (or any “Custodes” list that took more than jet-captains) doing well, ever. Though I have to admit I also haven’t seen many (which might be correlated ;) ).

I would honestly be interested what pure Custodes (or DW /GK, i.e any small elite army) list would be competetive, but I think that would kinda go beyond this thread and is a discussion for another time.

I feel I have by now said pretty much everything I have to say on the topic of CP regeneration/restriction and are only repeating myself/softly derailing it into a competitiveness discussion. So better bow out of the discussion until I have something new to say on topic.

I'm talking about competitive vs other mono faction lists. Start allying in against pure Custodes and you'll smash them maybe.

 

It's a case where it's either go big on allying or go home when considering competitiveness.

[Finkmilkana]

It's a case where it's either go big on allying or go home when considering competitiveness.

For many factions yes, which is exactly what I’m saying. But what you seem to be ignoring is that even right now, this doesn’t hold for all factions (for example pretty much all xenos are quite competetive without allying and should easily crush mono custodes). Which is exactly why soft-banning allying would only change the situation of factions that currently need to ally from “go big on allying or go home” to “just go home”.

[Beams]

 

 

GW balance the Codex books without the inclusion of allies. They do it on the assumption the Codex is standalone.

If they did that, then they wouldn't release ally factions , such as Silent Sisters, Knights, Assassins and Inquisitors.

 

That's the point, the ally factions you mentioned aren't balanced ALLYING with main factions. Hence why the game is broken to the point where an army with allies is so powerful vs those without.

 

Knights are only hard to beat for some lists because they skew hard with all T8. They are great if you want to stomp casual lists, but won’t win you any tournaments. Well, unless you get very lucky with your opponents, but that’s true for any skew list.

I honestly have not seen any pure Custodes list (or any “Custodes” list that took more than jet-captains) doing well, ever. Though I have to admit I also haven’t seen many (which might be correlated ;) ).

I would honestly be interested what pure Custodes (or DW /GK, i.e any small elite army) list would be competetive, but I think that would kinda go beyond this thread and is a discussion for another time.

I feel I have by now said pretty much everything I have to say on the topic of CP regeneration/restriction and are only repeating myself/softly derailing it into a competitiveness discussion. So better bow out of the discussion until I have something new to say on topic.

I'm talking about competitive vs other mono faction lists. Start allying in against pure Custodes and you'll smash them maybe.

 

It's a case where it's either go big on allying or go home when considering competitiveness.

Are you really suggesting that Sisters of Silence aren't balanced to be combined with other armies? They literally have a single model kit that doesn't even have HQs.

[PiñaColada]

 

For many factions yes, which is exactly what I’m saying. But what you seem to be ignoring is that even right now, this doesn’t hold for all factions (for example pretty much all xenos are quite competetive without allying and should easily crush mono custodes). Which is exactly why soft-banning allying would only change the situation of factions that currently need to ally from “go big on allying or go home” to “just go home”.

 

You've made some points other than just this one but for simplicitiy's sake I'll just quote here.

 

You do bring up some fair points, both tyranids and eldar are fairly inclusive armies that are much less dependent on soup to be competitive. In the case of tyranids you still see some multiple hive fleet cheese and eldar are still fairly often combined in a ynarri force but even the alaitoc force with a small detachment of saim-hann shining spears is not uncommon. Some of this stuff would not really be affected by the changes I've suggested. And that's a fair critisism, this isn't the simplest problem to solve, to find a universal fix that brings zero unintended consequences and fixes all faults. And, as you say, even if it did fix these issues some of the larger armies are simply better off due to their deeper roster.

 

But this solution is not meant to be implemented in a vacuum. There are a myriad of codex balance issues that still needs to be resolved such as just making normal space marines better. In general non-horde troops need to be buffed I think (I still class guard as horde here). The solution is not really meant to "kill soup" but rather make it so that some sort of thought process goes into whether it's worth adding allies or not.

 

And I don't know if you looked at the latest Bay Area Open or not but the non-championship round 6 table had two knight lists facing off each other supportted by only a minimal guard batallion each if I remember correctly. The championship round 6 table was a custodes force consisting of a guard batallion with added mortars, a culexus and roughly 1730 points of custodes versus a force of death guard & renegade knights.

 

My point is that both knights and custodes can clearly do well in tournaments. If my changes had been implemented they probably wouldn't have done as well but we'll never really know to what extent this would change things because as of right now there's not a reason to build a pure army at all. 

 

Also as a quick aside, for the other discussions in the thread. No obviously sisters of battle and several other smaller factions cannot function on their own as of right now. But if they don't yet have a codex it's perhaps not as relevant to include them. That being said, GW really screwed up assassins since the big faq. Just do a detachment that is 1-3 assassins rather than the mess they have right now. Also, outright banning non-primary faction stratagems feels a bit too harsh but making all of them cost an additional CP feels balanced and fluffy in my mind.

 

 

In the end all I really want is for GW to acknowledge the fact that they're actively dissuading people from going mono-faction and are looking into ways of solving that.  Something like just giving more CP for being mono-faction will never work when the guard battery is alive and well.