CP regeneration. Degenerate or Ok?

[Finkmilkana]

 

I feel right now we kinda all say the same thing: “restricting CP and/or stratagems to main faction would work for reducing CP batteries, but also reduce the viability of soup lists”. What we mainly seem to disagree on is whether reducing souping is a good thing or a bad thing. And as that is mostly personal preference, further discussion on this specific proposal seems mostly moot.

 

In a sense I feel the problem lies in the fact that a perfect balance between allying or not allying is probably not possible. So whatever GW does, either the people who like soupy lists or those who do not like soupy lists will feel that “their” prefered style of play is actively dissuaded.

Personally I like soups, both from a fluff perspective (most lore battles contain more than one faction) and from a game play perspective (I just like trying out and theory crunching many crazy different nieche combinations), so I’m a fan of them currently leaning towards encouraging soups. Since this is also good from a business perspective ( as it make people buy more models of different factions to try out when they don’t require full armies), I don’t think they will move away from it. But I completely understand how some people would prefer more incentives for mono army lists.

 

Maybe we should try to separate the issue of “should allying be dissuaded or incentivized” from the questions this thread was originally about, which was whether (and if, yes how) CP regenerating abilities (and to a lesser extend CP battery detachments, which are different from allying in general) should be restricted.

 

 

To maybe bring the discussion into different direction, I believe most/all CP-regen abilities should either be removed from the game or be unified (I.e. so that all regenerate roughly the same amount) and/or made accessible to all factions and/or removed. Right now, they are just almost always the superior choice when available and if your faction doesn’t have one, you ally in someone who does.

 

To restrict “CP battery allies”, I still like the idea to put in a minimum point/pl requirement for the battalion/brigade detachments to generate their full amount of CP. Maybe something like “A battalion detachment grants 3 CP and 1/2 additional CP if it contains more than 400/500 points worth of models”.

[RandomMarine]

My fixes would be

1 warlord must be from largest detachment

2 CP only regen on a 6

3 troop selections must be max size to unlock that detachments CP bonus

 

 

Also agent of vect needs to go away as it properly OP

[Beams]

My fixes would be

1 warlord must be from largest detachment

2 CP only regen on a 6

3 troop selections must be max size to unlock that detachments CP bonus

 

 

Also agent of vect needs to go away as it properly OP

I think agents of vect is great. More factions should have that.

 

Also, warlord shouldn't have to be from largest faction. If you take an I inqusitor/St Celestine/Space Marine Librarian does it really make sense for a Company Commander to be ordering them around?

 

I'm fine with the other two though.

[MARK0SIAN]

My fixes would be

1 warlord must be from largest detachment

2 CP only regen on a 6

3 troop selections must be max size to unlock that detachments CP bonus

 

 

Also agent of vect needs to go away as it properly OP

The first two make sense but taking the max number of troops to unlock CP is too much. Space Marines would need to take 60 tactical marines, scouts or Intercessors if they wanted a brigade.

 

In fact this would further exacerbate the problem between horde armies and elite ones in terms of CP. Cheap horde armies would be the only ones practically able to fill out the larger detachments, even more so than they are now. To reach even a battalion, Custodes would have to spend 1470 points just on their troops and that’s just giving them a sentinel blade.

[Ipsen]

Also infantry squads are already taken at max size. Just sayin'.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Yeah CP is a really complicated issue because you can have a list with 3 detachments that isn't just thirty guardsmen and cheese. Its why I think the number of codex you use should take away from max cp, because you gain other strengths. The type of detachments you use really shouldn't effect it, and I think you should have troops lol. 

 

That said I think some of the cp regeneration relics are overrated, its just that relics in general are a lot worse than they used to be.

 

I'm curious to see how GW moves forward because there isn't anything stopping them from making other detachments like the knight that gives bonus cp (for example a marine battalion with a captain and a chaplain grants 7 cp instead of five). Or even print new stratagems or make a tax system where your primary detachment cp are costed normally and other stratagems cost an additional point. 

[Finkmilkana]

I actually like the idea of making people pay a few CP (1 to 3 for the second, 3 to 5 for the third seems fair) for mixing in more than 1 faction (including more than one chapter/regiment etc keyword). Puts an opportunity cost on using more than one faction, but doesn’t make units from the “secondary” faction worse than when taken as a primary. You pay a reasonable price for the privilege of mixing, but are not punished for the ratio in which you mix.

[MARK0SIAN]

I actually like the idea of making people pay a few CP (1 to 3 for the second, 3 to 5 for the third seems fair) for mixing in more than 1 faction (including more than one chapter/regiment etc keyword). Puts an opportunity cost on using more than one faction, but doesn’t make units from the “secondary” faction worse than when taken as a primary. You pay a reasonable price for the privilege of mixing, but are not punished for the ratio in which you mix.

This seems fair but I think there should be an exemption for the Superheavy Auxiliary Detachment.

[Finkmilkana]

This seems fair but I think there should be an exemption for the Superheavy Auxiliary Detachment.

Care to elaborate why? Seems to be a detachment like any other and excluding it would just lead to allying a single super heavy from another faction being cheaper than allying anything else. Note that I would not advise to have the CP cost be attached to additional detachments at all, but to different faction keywords. So a Talarn guard army could bring a Talarn Baneblade in a SHAD without paying CP, but they would have to pay to bring a knight or a Catachan Baneblade.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

This seems fair but I think there should be an exemption for the Superheavy Auxiliary Detachment.

Care to elaborate why? Seems to be a detachment like any other and excluding it would just lead to allying a single super heavy from another faction being cheaper than allying anything else. Note that I would not advise to have the CP cost be attached to additional detachments at all, but to different faction keywords. So a Talarn guard army could bring a Talarn Baneblade in a SHAD without paying CP, but they would have to pay to bring a knight or a Catachan Baneblade.

That’s fine for Guard who have access to their own superheavies but not every army does. Some armies will have no choice but to ally in a superheavy from another faction if they need one. It creates an uneven playing field when it comes to fielding a superheavy. Obviously some factions don’t have superheavies and are unable to ally them in either which is also unfair but why add in more unfairness.

[Finkmilkana]

Limiting allying does always create unfairnes though and that same argument works for any battlefield role. Inquisition for examlle doesn’t have troops, fast attack, heavy support or flyers. So while I feel this a completely valid argument against the concept of limiting overall (as I’ve argued for the last few pages), I don’t see the merit of making an exception only for superheavies specifically. It’s not like super heavies are required to be competetive after all.

[MARK0SIAN]

Limiting allying does always create unfairnes though and that same argument works for any battlefield role. Inquisition for examlle doesn’t have troops, fast attack, heavy support or flyers. So while I feel this a completely valid argument against the concept of limiting overall (as I’ve argued for the last few pages), I don’t see the merit of making an exception only for superheavies specifically. It’s not like super heavies are required to be competetive after all.

This is true but I never like to see limits imposed on players without good reason. In this case, I don’t think taxing some superheavies for some armies but not for others will have a fair impact on the game or create the changes we are hoping to see and so I think in the case of superheavies (and to be clear I only mean superheavies and only in the auxiliary detachment as I agree with you for the others) we will have to agree to disagree :)

[Elzender]

Just an idea, without really having any experience in playing 8th: restricting the CPs generated by a certain detachment to its faction (or chapter/craftworld/world/clan/etc.)?

 

This would severely hinder things like Imperial Guard CP batteries, but it would not affect mono guard lists. Soups would be affected, but they could still count on the CPs for all the factions they use.

Would it require keeping track on 2+ CP reserves? True, but I don't think it's out of reach for most of us, and I'm guessing 3+ faction armies are not that common.

[Golf33]

Max troops for Orks is 360 models and 2160 points. Not even remotely viable. Plus with Orks you're looking at an army that doesn't have any ability to ally in batteries.

[RandomMarine]

Maybe apply to non warlord faction detachments.

[Bulwyf]

I do not like the current CP rules. Some armies benefit so much more than others that I don't see how it can be seen as balanced.

[Beams]

I do not like the current CP rules. Some armies benefit so much more than others that I don't see how it can be seen as balanced.

Each (nonsoup) army has a set of strategems and cp. Guard has very poor to average strategems, but has a large number of command points. Other factions, like Custodes or blood angels, have a access to strong strategems but have less command points.

 

 

Honestly, this system makes more sense than most of the suggestions to fix it, and creates a average CP per model on the board kind of thing.

 

Guard/Orks/Tau needs at least 32 models for 5 CP, while Marines/ChaosMarine/Gross Marines/EgyptianMarines/WolfMarines/RedMarines/Green Marines/BlackMarines/GreyMarines/SistersOfBattle need only 17, and Custodes need only 10.

 

So while Guard can get more CP than Custodes, they have to spread it out over a lot more models, and have weaker strategems (Get Down!, A +1 to infantry saves, Is arguably guards best, while Custodes have a super powerful charge during the opponents phase, ability to split superterminators into squads of 1, deepstrike anything, etc)

 

That's not saying GW has balanced it perfectly, and soup causes some major issues, but the intent makes a lot of sense.

 

My suggestion would be separate command pools for different factions.

[Lord_Caerolion]

How about making it that CP's can only be used on Stratagems affecting the detachment that generated them? So yeah, you can still take a Guard CP Battery, they just can't use those CPs to boost the Custodes bike Captains you've taken alongside them.

[sairence]

In theory that could work for balancing, but in practice it means you now potentially have to keep track of 3 different cp-pools, 4 if you take the standard battleforged ones as universal cp.

[chapter master 454]

I will stand by that every faction should have their own unique variant of what each chart gives them. The charts can be generic but the CP generation should be unique. We obviously can't avoid certain min-maxing by players but that is such a horrible thing to do in terms of design it would destroy any creative options.

 

What we can do is incentivise armies into certain roles. Marines should take greater benefit from the more focused charts but not so much larger trees, again they aren't MEANT to be a mass force but an elite team who does their job. So Vanguard and Outrider would be higher CP reward for marines, possibly offering +3 for each one taken (and a bonus +2 if all the minimum required squads are maxed out in size). Meanwhile their battalion could still offer +5 as it would be the core of a battle company, possibly offering bonuses if you take certain units like the old formations (but not so over powered in benefit) so if you take a Captain and Chaplain for the HQs with three tacticals you get +1CP to the +5 but if take 6 tactical squads all maxed in squad size then you get a massive CP boost (something like +12 or something instead).

 

We need to encourage taking certain units with these charts per army. Right now, we have equality but not equity.

[Mileposter]

"A Space Marine Spearhead Detachment gives 3 CP" type rule in every army I'd be cool with. Minimal bookkeeping, basic, only worries about it during list generation.

 

But the tables upon tables with options within tables is too much. 8th is built around simplicity... And that ain't it.

[Beams]

I will stand by that every faction should have their own unique variant of what each chart gives them. The charts can be generic but the CP generation should be unique. We obviously can't avoid certain min-maxing by players but that is such a horrible thing to do in terms of design it would destroy any creative options.

 

What we can do is incentivise armies into certain roles. Marines should take greater benefit from the more focused charts but not so much larger trees, again they aren't MEANT to be a mass force but an elite team who does their job. So Vanguard and Outrider would be higher CP reward for marines, possibly offering +3 for each one taken (and a bonus +2 if all the minimum required squads are maxed out in size). Meanwhile their battalion could still offer +5 as it would be the core of a battle company, possibly offering bonuses if you take certain units like the old formations (but not so over powered in benefit) so if you take a Captain and Chaplain for the HQs with three tacticals you get +1CP to the +5 but if take 6 tactical squads all maxed in squad size then you get a massive CP boost (something like +12 or something instead).

 

We need to encourage taking certain units with these charts per army. Right now, we have equality but not equity.

There should only be the generic options. And definitely no formations.

 

Formations made 7th editions problems dramatically worse. And if you didn't play an army that had tons of formations or even a good formation, you would find yourself staring down an army with either +1000 pts in free units or upgrades, or with so many special rules added on top of them that your CAD didn't have a chance. No, all armies should have to abide by the same army construction rules. It's the only way it will ever be at all close to fair.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I don't think that giving bonus CP for elite armies for the more specialists slots would be a good ideal. I think it would further promote soup builds, and hurt Elite troops chances at being viable.

 

I would suggest either have a set level of command points, that is modified by the nature of the detachments or codex specific detachments that for meeting certain requirements grant bonus CP. 

[Elzender]

In theory that could work for balancing, but in practice it means you now potentially have to keep track of 3 different cp-pools, 4 if you take the standard battleforged ones as universal cp.

I would propose doing it by faction/subfaction (as in, all the detachments from the same space marine chapter/guard regiment/eldar craftworld/hive fleet/ork klan/etc. Share a CP pool). That way, CP batteries become obsolete except for pure mono-army lists, so choosing the right subfaction matters. Mixed armies would suffer a bit, but it would reduce cherry-picking of powerful units + cheap CP battery. I'm pretty sure people would still be able to create effective mixed army lists.

[Kallas]

 

In theory that could work for balancing, but in practice it means you now potentially have to keep track of 3 different cp-pools, 4 if you take the standard battleforged ones as universal cp.

I would propose doing it by faction/subfaction (as in, all the detachments from the same space marine chapter/guard regiment/eldar craftworld/hive fleet/ork klan/etc. Share a CP pool). That way, CP batteries become obsolete except for pure mono-army lists, so choosing the right subfaction matters. Mixed armies would suffer a bit, but it would reduce cherry-picking of powerful units + cheap CP battery. I'm pretty sure people would still be able to create effective mixed army lists.

There's still the problem of some factions getting barely any CP, even though CP is supposed to represent a strong command structure (which elite armies would definitely have).

 

Custodes, Astartes, etc should all have at least decent initial CP generation. That's the root issue (well, that and CP cost/value).