Opinions about a possible way forward for monofaction armies

[ERJAK]

Hey Brother,

 

I don't really mind if others like them or not, because that is not the issue. Strats and CP generation are often the cause of imbalances too, especially in multi faction armies. Hence this topic.

 

GW attempt to re-balance points each year (I think they should do it every 6 months personally); as they get better at it poor units or mono faction armies also get better in relation to multi faction ones.

Relying on gimmicks to save a faction is a lazy and misguided mechanism and doomed to fail due to player abuse, regardless of their popularity.

 

If GW do indeed get better at their point balancing I will be even happier, the game has gotten far too much like 2nd Ed(my second least favorite edition), time for a streamline imho.

All my games without them have been fun, I cannot say that about my games with them. Just my perspective of course.

Points are a gimmick doomed to fail due to player abuse. The rule of 3 was a gimmick doomed to fail due to player abuse. Detachments are a gimmick doomed to fail due to player abuse. It's all gimmicks doomed to fail due to player abuse all the way down. Just because Stratagems are the gimmick you like the least doesn't make all that other stuff not just gimmicks they use to try and force people to play far.  

[ERJAK]

Ultramarines with Maccrage PDF is basically just marines with guard from a crunch perspective and from a fluff perspective means your marines would always be fighting at Maccrage, because a planetary defense force is there to defend a planet. I'm rather they just make the marine basic infantry worth their points. It's possible to make an army where the cheapest option isn't the only one taken in the troops slot, grots and conscripts don't outnumber orks and guardsmen after all.

 

I'm in board with ditching CP and strategems entirely. That would help get rid of the minmax nonsense like loyal 32 and most of the time I don't remember what the opponent's strategems actually do anyways.

Grots and conscripts are a terrible example because those are both units that have MASSIVE constraints or drawbacks to using them as your main troop unit. Turn the clock back a year and half to when you could just take conscripts in units of 10 and they hadn't push through any of the other nerfs, and they're the only troop worth taking again.

 

And CP and Strats aren't even half the problem. Not even a quarter. Getting rid of them doesn't suddenly make the Space Wolves codex good. It doesn't suddenly make Ynnari bad. All that a change like that will do is swap around what's broken. It wouldn't even flatten the power curve because CP dependent units that are REALLY good now(atalan bikers, Castellan, etc) suddenly become bottom tier, while the less CP dependent units/lists that they were crowding out (guillamen gunline, just...anything Eldar can do) get a massive boost just from everything else being weaker.

 

Remember when we only had 3 stratagems and the only one you really used was a reroll every now and again? Remember how Guillamen with Stormravens is STILL the most broken list 8th edition has ever seen, relative to the competition at the time? I remember that. CP

 

 

It was just an example. Lots of Astartes fight alongside mortal elements under their direct command.

Uh, they do? Isn’t a pretty big part of the Imperium’s post-Heresy reformation the fact that Astartes don’t get to command huge armies of non-Astartes?

 

As for ditching CP and starts, why on Earth would you want that? They enrich the game and add variety.

They break the game, more than anything. It plays fine without them, just as it did for the 30ish years before their introduction.

 

 That is a bold face muthahurmpin lie and you know it. Both 6th AND 7th were dumpster fires of broken bullgak. And NO it WASN'T just formations that did it. Screamer star, Thunderstar, Centurion Star, Summoning Batteries, all were super busted, did not need formations. I didn't play 2nd through 5 but I betcha people who did can certainly bring up a lot of stupid crap that happened in those eras. I seem to recall a greyknight codex being so busted they had to rush out a new edition once.

 

And that's not even getting into all the fun little rules quirks that have plagued basically every edition. Fish of Fury? Nob Biker Wound Shenanigans? Being able to abuse challenge mechanics to make a character immune to melee? Vehicle being made out Nitro-glycerine paper-mache and dying to bushes? The D-Table?

 

No, the game has never played fine. We just agree to deal with it because the models are rad, the background is cool, and it's still a lot of fun despite its flaws.

 

Look, the problem with Imperial soup, because lets be real that's what everyone is actually talking about. Eldar are just as broken without it and people barely even notice the difference with GSC and Chaos. Is systemic and comes from the rule of 3 (which is ACTUALLY a lazy gimmick that just brushed the real problem under the rug for a while) combined with the fact that the majority of Imperial units are terrible. Why do assault marines exist? What the hell is the point of Deathwing Terminators? Who could actually justify taking Celestians? Are Honor guard actually some kind of GW in-joke we just don't get? Grey Knight...just...all of Grey Knights? Start THERE and worry about CP later.

[FlamingDeth]

How are grots and conscripts terrible examples of being able to make it so that the cheapest option for troops not being an auto take? You're reinforcing my point. Grots have all sorts if drawbacks that make it so that they aren't the only troops that Ork players field, but people still field them due to having situational uses without outshining the iconic troops unit for the faction. They sound like a perfect example for what I was trying to say. Make tactical marines as useful for the points as boyz are and people will take more than scouts and loyal 32.

 

As far as editions go, 5th thus far had, I think the best balanced core rules. The codexes themselves we're hit and miss due to a sporadic update schedule and constantly changing design philosophy, but the core rules themselves we're fine, and even the nob/paladin musical wounds was annoying at worst. I'm having trouble thinking of anything so broken it ruined the game.

[Lexington]

That is a bold face muthahurmpin lie and you know it. Both 6th AND 7th were dumpster fires of broken bullgak.

 

No, the game has never played fine. We just agree to deal with it because the models are rad, the background is cool, and it's still a lot of fun despite its flaws.

You're getting me pretty wrong, here. I'm always going to agree with the sentiment that 40K is a bad, dumb game that's (sometimes) fun. If you want a good game, well, Infinity's, like...right there. It's cheaper, too.

 

But, what I mean here is that 40K doesn't require Stratagems or Command Points - it's a strange system, entirely disconnected from the rest of the ruleset, and seems to do much more harm than good. There's ways that the game is arguably more broken from the standpoint of Codexes, or even from the basic rules concepts, but most of those are necessary in some way to have a game. Stratagems and CP aren't, and they're highly severable, so I think it's a god place as any to start.

[MegaVolt87]

Its definitely not a simple fix, seen this topic everywhere. The simplest thing would have been to determine what the base 40K game is in power level and points scale like 2,000pts standard as example. Then, have CP increase based on game size. Then you can balance the CP cost of abilities from the baseline, better at higher points without breaking at the base average points, so no diminished returns/ extraordinary outlier efficiency. This way soup is for flavor and less about CP farming because everyone gets a fair and equal amount to spend. Then we could also see more re-gen CP options for everyone which would also be balanced, because everyone would ideal have a similar method to do this regardless. But its GW so always the hard/convoluted/ psyduck logic. 

[Ishagu]

 

That is a bold face muthahurmpin lie and you know it. Both 6th AND 7th were dumpster fires of broken bullgak.

 

No, the game has never played fine. We just agree to deal with it because the models are rad, the background is cool, and it's still a lot of fun despite its flaws.

You're getting me pretty wrong, here. I'm always going to agree with the sentiment that 40K is a bad, dumb game that's (sometimes) fun. If you want a good game, well, Infinity's, like...right there. It's cheaper, too.

 

But, what I mean here is that 40K doesn't require Stratagems or Command Points - it's a strange system, entirely disconnected from the rest of the ruleset, and seems to do much more harm than good. There's ways that the game is arguably more broken from the standpoint of Codexes, or even from the basic rules concepts, but most of those are necessary in some way to have a game. Stratagems and CP aren't, and they're highly severable, so I think it's a god place as any to start.

I love the strategems. They're not all balanced but that can be fixed over time.

[Marshal Reinhard]

Oh hey, it's this topic again. I'll quote earlier responses I've made on this subject, as I'm of the mind that they do address the issue with CP and can't recall ever seeing a rebuttal or an explanation why this wouldn't work/wasn't the issue.

 

CP represents command right? Like the army's ability to coordinate and function like a well oiled machine?

 

It'd make all the sense that you impose limits on the amount of CP an army gets the more differing factions that's included in it. The more different command structures involved, the more different factions, with different ways of communication, tradition & fighting styles should lead to the army having less opportunity to pull off CP actions of a well oiled machine. 

 

 

I do feel like I've made this argument before.

 

 

Conceivably you could do the reverse too, grant more CP to monodex armies vs multidex armies.

 

Like most balancing problems, this essentially comes down to cost. Different stratagems from different armies are of different strength, yet the difference in strength isn't reflected enough in how many CP they cost. This works fine if all armies' CP pools were completely separate, but it breaks down when you can use the cheap CP of the guard to power the powerful stratagems of Knights.

You either need to make sure that there is consistent a CP-cost to Stratagem-utility ratio for all stratagems across all codices. Or as suggested earlier, simply limit the amount of CP available to soup armies would get rid of the problems.

 

[Interrogator Stobz]

I said something like that a while back too, but it's too logical for GW.

Another option is to grant CP bases on some form of leadership metric, like the number of HQ units, their points value, or something else entirely.

I'd still like them to go away, but a small nimble elite army lead by the best leader should generate heaps more CP than a ragtag bunch of cultists or loyalists lead by a semi-trained bully.

[MARK0SIAN]

These kind of hit on some of the biggest contradictions within the CP system itself. If they’re supposed to represent command and control as Reinhard points out, then why are they tied to troops as opposed to support elements and HQ? If they’re meant to represent an army working as a well oiled machine then they should be more dependent on things like communications, HQs, intelligence etc.

 

The other thing is the stratagems themselves. A huge number of them have nothing to do with representing greater command and control for example a knight exploding on a 4 instead of a 6. I think it would help clarify things in people’s minds if GW ditched this idea that CP were meant to represent anything other than bonus abilities to encourage people to take troops, either that or genuinely tie them to command abilities.

[Interrogator Stobz]

That's the gimmicky thing that I don't want like about them, if they were actually about strategic bonuses they'd make sense.

But they are just patches in lieu of decent unit rules.

[Marshal Reinhard]

To be fair, that a lot of strategems seems tied to abilities and what not,I take it is just an effect of the game-ification of everything. Presumambly the baseline ability is just an army performing some kind of advanced maneuver, with the orders going from a head (HQ) to the body (troops). You do get your CP when you fill out a complete battallion or similiar, which should in most cases represent troops on the ground and some form of HQ to lead them, so it makes a bit of sense? 

 

It just becomes silly when the knight can rotate his shields an extra time because beneath him there's another 32 guard bodies, letting him do that because reasons.

[Ishagu]

I think we can all agree that allied, cheap Battalions are a problem because of the CP generation.

 

I don't think allies are an issue in of themselves but at the moment they have too many advantages over a mono list. We also have to be careful. I agree that Knights are too common but what about Knights and AdMech? They are in the same codex yet have different keywords lol

 

There is a problem with imbalances between unit capabilities from faction to faction. This also impacts the desirability of allies.

[Marshal Reinhard]

The real problem is the inconsistent CP-cost to Stratagem-utility ratio across all the codexes. As it is you get more bang for your buck by spending your guard CP on a Knight stratagem than on a guard one. It's not neccessarily as much of a problem that guard can get a boatload of CP from their weak troops to do a lot of abilities that in isolation don't make them overpowered. It's when you can use those CP elsewhere and each and every CP you spent gets you a lot more utility because you tossed it at your Knights etc instead.

 

This could be fixed by upping the cost of Knight Stratagem (and then also CP generation of Knights to balance) so that you get as much utility out of your spent CP on Knight Strategems as everyone elses. You'd have to do this for all codexes, so that 1 CP is as equally valuable to everyone.

 

Or you keep CP pools seperate per dex.

 

Or you restrict mutlidex armies CP amount/generation.

[Slasher956]

A simple(ish) way would be to re-cost the Strats.... 

 

like how the requistion an assassin is 1/3 depending on game mode how about making ALL the starts (except the 3 basic ones in the rule book) have two costs... the 1st cost is the current one and is the Warlord factions cost, the 2nd one being the cost if your warlord is a different faction.

 

Faction being clarified as being a single codex, or <legion>, <chapter>, <regiment> etc

 

edit - however I could see GW taking an easier approach and applying the GSC method to formations taken from a codex different to your warlord. .... ie half CP generation

[MegaVolt87]

That's the gimmicky thing that I don't want like about them, if they were actually about strategic bonuses they'd make sense.

But they are just patches in lieu of decent unit rules.

 

Agreed, you could easily add most of the stratagems to their parent units rules unit entry seamlessly. Obviously this would make some units very undercosted but a points increase to adjust the fact they can do the stratagem as a normal rule would fix it. Especially with the regular CA points adjustments that happen now. 

[Marshal Reinhard]

A simple(ish) way would be to re-cost the Strats.... 

 

like how the requistion an assassin is 1/3 depending on game mode how about making ALL the starts (except the 3 basic ones in the rule book) have two costs... the 1st cost is the current one and is the Warlord factions cost, the 2nd one being the cost if your warlord is a different faction.

 

Faction being clarified as being a single codex, or <legion>, <chapter>, <regiment> etc

 

edit - however I could see GW taking an easier approach and applying the GSC method to formations taken from a codex different to your warlord. .... ie half CP generation

 

I actually consider that the more tedious, work-intensive way (for the creators, as they gotta rebalance every single stratagem of every single codex). Keeping pools sepperate is the most tedious for players playing a game, as now you have different CP to keep track of. The third option, just to incur CP penalties on soup armies, is probably the easiest to implement, but the clumsiest.

[Ishagu]

The real problem is the inconsistent CP-cost to Stratagem-utility ratio across all the codexes. As it is you get more bang for your buck by spending your guard CP on a Knight stratagem than on a guard one. It's not neccessarily as much of a problem that guard can get a boatload of CP from their weak troops to do a lot of abilities that in isolation don't make them overpowered. It's when you can use those CP elsewhere and each and every CP you spent gets you a lot more utility because you tossed it at your Knights etc instead.

 

This could be fixed by upping the cost of Knight Stratagem (and then also CP generation of Knights to balance) so that you get as much utility out of your spent CP on Knight Strategems as everyone elses. You'd have to do this for all codexes, so that 1 CP is as equally valuable to everyone.

 

Or you keep CP pools seperate per dex.

 

Or you restrict mutlidex armies CP amount/generation.

That would involve huge amounts of book-keeping I think. Also, if we limit the stratagem pools we nerf the abusive combos but also totally cripple the non abusive lists built with allies.

 

It's easy to point to a Castellan surrounded by guardsmen and call for new restrictions but what about a list made up of Grey Knights and some Inquisitors and Sisters? Do you want them to become even less viable?

 

It comes down to my original point about potentially nerfing the Imperium faction into irrelevance as the most powerful combos they can access are literally the only things keeping Eldar and Chaos lists at bay.

[Marshal Reinhard]

 

That would involve huge amounts of book-keeping I think. Also, if we limit the stratagem pools we nerf the abusive combos but also totally cripple the non abusive lists built with allies.

 

It's easy to point to a Castellan surrounded by guardsmen and call for new restrictions but what about a list made up of Grey Knights and some Inquisitors and Sisters? Do you want them to become even less viable?

 

It comes down to my original point about potentially nerfing the Imperium faction into irrelevance as the most powerful combos they can access are literally the only things keeping Eldar and Chaos lists at bay.

 

 

Those are the three options you have to get at the problem. If your only objection to the first one is "It would involve huge amounts of book keeping" then yes. Sure. It would.

As for the other two, you'll have to support your acertions that'll cripple legit armies a bit better to convince me.

 

But regardless, either you keep ignoring the issue or take one of the three options (or any possible others not thought of yet) to deal with it.

 

EDIT: I was convinced below, by assassins never getting to do anything with sepperate pools. So while it fixes one problem it introduces another. So would require additional fixing in the vein of recosting regardless if it was employed.

[Ishagu]

I think the way to resolve the issue is to balance units in individual books better, and to alter the way CP are generated.

 

CP should be generated based on the point size of the primary detachment in a list, not by the type of detachment included in said list. (a 180 point detachent would add 1 CP or non to a list)

Individual units need to be re-balanced, starting with a point increase for Guardsmen/Grots/Kroot etc as cheap, disposable infantry is too dominant in the game at the moment.

 

Then move on to Knights. Change the Ion shield strat so it can't improve an Invul beyond a 4++

There's no need to modify them further as they could become irrelevant if they are weakened too much. The margins are fine.

[Slasher956]

Also heres a problem with separate CP pools. ... Assassins. (ok only a WD mini dex but still only recently released)

 

They can get 1 CP total, and thats if you do a single build... if you have separate pools they now cant use half (more?) of their Strats

[Marshal Reinhard]

I think the way to resolve the issue is to balance units in individual books better, and to alter the way CP are generated.

 

CP should be generated based on the point size of the primary detachment in a list, not by the type of detachment included in said list. (a 180 point detachent would add 1 CP or non to a list)

Individual units need to be re-balanced, starting with a point increase for Guardsmen/Grots/Kroot etc as cheap, disposable infantry is too dominant in the game at the moment.

What you're suggesting is in essence fixed CP amounts based on points. That does not deal with different dexes getting unequal ammounts of benefit or utility from the same one CP.

 

Then move on to Knights. Change the Ion shield strat so it can't improve an Invul beyond a 4++

This would by all intents and purposes be a Knight nerf. I don't hear a lot about mono-knight armies getting  complaints about being OP, but this change would hurt them too.

Also heres a problem with separate CP pools. ... Assassins. (ok only a WD mini dex but still only recently released)

 

They can get 1 CP total, and thats if you do a single build... if you have separate pools they now cant use half (more?) of their Strats

Good point. Leans more in favour of a total recosting then.

[MARK0SIAN]

I also think a huge part of the issue is that the number of CP that armies are awarded was originally envisioned as an amount to last over a 5 turn game, so maybe one or two stratagems per turn. However as most games are over by turn 3 it encourages people to spend them quickly and so we possibly see a lot more stratagems played in a short time than was originally intended.

 

Like rotate icon shields, to do that every turn would basically eat up pretty much all the cp of a pure knight army, but in reality you only have to play it two times and the game is effectively done. This also relates to stratagem cost, I don’t think the problem is that something like rotate ion shields is too cheap, I think it’s that it doesn’t have to compete with other choices over an extended game.

[Ishagu]

Reinhard:

 

That's because the quality of stratagems is not correctly balances.

 

Following the Dark Eldar and Knight books, strats became a lot more spicy and a lot more impactful. The more recent books all have great Strats. They need to be updated across the older books so they become as useful as the ones in the newer codecies.

 

It goes back to my original point: Allies are encouraged because of Codex imbalances and a badly skewed CP generation system.

[Slasher956]

@reinhard, yeah but like you pointed out its a LOT of work for the designers... properly as much as writting a new 'dex

 

@mark0sian, so either put a limitation on the strats saying they cant be used in 2 consecutive battle rounds... then put an exception in for the re-roll.  IE only the re-roll can be used more than once in a turn, and if you use any other then you cant use it again the next turn.  It would bring back people having to concider should I use this strat now or maybe I'll need it more next turn.

[MegaVolt87]

3++ is way too strong for anybody IMO. Should not even be in the rules at all. 4++ is plenty good enough and more balanced/fair.