What is Soup?

[Ishagu]

In 3rd edition Andy Chambers (praise be the Overfiend) removed allies because it unbalanced the game. If there's no penalty in taking allies then they'll always outclass anything without allies. It's about impossible to balance on a inter model basis otherwise because the army weaknesses are removed most often.

 

Example - Custodes are super elite and struggle with numbers and long ranged firepower, with reduced access to CPs due to points costs. Add Guardsmen and you eliminate their weaknesses as an army.

CP is all wrong at the moment. Why do Guard generate more command points than the grestest tacticians in the galaxy?

 

400 points of Custodes should generate the same amount of CP as 400 points of guardsmen, if not more.

 

The detachments and bonuses are all wrong at the moment.

[BlackTriton]

Thing is, GW agree that the CP situation need work.

When confronted with the CP disparity, they gave more cp to every one as a stop gap mesure. If every one gets a lot, those that have the most dont stand out as much.

This in turn made cp generation the problem it currently is, the more we spend, the more we regenerate.

 

I fully expect CP to be as much as halved during the life span of 8ed.

[Kite Senet]

Personally, I'd say "soup" begins when the alliance starts getting ridiculous enough that it breaks down in the fluff; especially things like characters without their designated army or individual units without their faction's command structure. It's very hard to find examples of that in 8th edition with the new Battle Brothers rules, but one could find more indirect contortion of fluff for example in Chaos lists running both Death Guard and Thousand Sons, or with their respective Daemons, etc.

 

But that's about fluff. With respect to crunch...

 

In 3rd edition Andy Chambers (praise be the Overfiend) removed allies because it unbalanced the game. If there's no penalty in taking allies then they'll always outclass anything without allies. It's about impossible to balance on a inter model basis otherwise because the army weaknesses are removed most often.

Example - Custodes are super elite and struggle with numbers and long ranged firepower, with reduced access to CPs due to points costs. Add Guardsmen and you eliminate their weaknesses as an army.

 

This. It's just not possible to have mix-and-match detachments be fully balanced with every single combination of detachments (even restricted to, say, Imperium or Chaos alliances). The only way to do this would be to homogenize the game by removing all strengths and weaknesses from every faction, because otherwise you're always going to gain advantage by patching up your faction's weaknesses with another faction which has strength in that department.

 

A penalty for multi-factioning could also take the form of missing out on bonuses rendered to single-faction lists, of course; I think that makes it a bit more plausible. For example, they could return the official Detachment CP values to the rulebook values and then have them attain the current, increased values if one is playing mono-faction. It would, after all, make sense that single-faction armies would have a command advantage in their cohesion as a force. Plus, this helps balance things out a bit for the Xenos, who can't just drag in the Imperial Guard to fill out detachments for cheap CP.

[Golf33]

I can't see how it's thematic to have a small contingent of guardsmen accompanying a larger force of space marines. That's completely back to front - it should be a small force of space marines accompanying a huge horde of guardsmen.

[Schlitzaf]

I loved how no one here answered the question the second half of the question here. And we came back to (imperium) + 32.

[Panzer]

We answered all your questions tho. We just didn't do a quote&direct answer type of answering. Just read what people wrote and you should be able to answer everything you asked in your OP. ;)

[Captain Idaho]

<snip>

 

A penalty for multi-factioning could also take the form of missing out on bonuses rendered to single-faction lists, of course; I think that makes it a bit more plausible. For example, they could return the official Detachment CP values to the rulebook values and then have them attain the current, increased values if one is playing mono-faction. It would, after all, make sense that single-faction armies would have a command advantage in their cohesion as a force. Plus, this helps balance things out a bit for the Xenos, who can't just drag in the Imperial Guard to fill out detachments for cheap CP.

I always thought that faction traits should be limited purely to a nominated primary faction, CP generation only from said Primary faction, Warlord Traits and Relics only from Primary Faction. Strategums available only for rule book and Primary faction etc.

 

You still get folk wanting their thematic soups and that's fine - the benefits to the tactical and strategic play you get from the flexible army you built should more than compensate from not having ALL the benefits of each faction.

[Ishagu]

If you limit CP in such a way you'd nerf Custodes and a Knights into the ground.

 

Let's not make the Eldar factions even more powerful.

 

As I said, GW needs to alter the ways in which CP are generated to make it fair across all books.

[Captain Idaho]

No, it wouldn't. Knights and Custodes are super powerful.

[Ishagu]

CP play a major part in that. Allied Knights rely on the CP from the main detachment, as do Custodes.

[Zodd1888]

Unpopular opinion incoming:

 

Competitive Play Detatchment

 

2x HQ

 

2x Of a single unit type

 

1x Any other single unit type beyond the above selection

 

X maximum allowed of any unit selection

 

OR

 

3x LoW

 

This is the only allowable detatchment for use in competitive play.

 

+9 CP

 

Maximum CP in competitive play is 12 CP.

 

9 CP from detatchment, 3 CP from battleforged.

 

 

Forces people to take a varied and sizable investment for any faction they want to include beyond their first, and sets a maximum CP to prevent further spam.

[Captain Idaho]

CP play a major part in that. Allied Knights rely on the CP from the main detachment, as do Custodes.

I disagree. Competitively speaking what makes Knights powerful is the sheer firepower they can unleash on opposing armies on T7/8 high wound platforms. Armigers are superior to most enemy main battle tanks too.

 

Custodes are atrocious in power. Jetbikes Captains and crazy stats and weapons are what makes them powerful.

 

You're also comparing both those armies to other Soup armies which isn't a fair comparison since both sides would have the same limitations by my suggestions.

 

If it transpired both armies need a CP then GW would do what they already did once and increase their base level. Done.

[Ishagu]

As good as Knights are in their core rules, it's actually the strategems that make them especially effective.

 

I'm currently playing with my shiny new Knights and without those strats they would be merely good, not great.

[Captain Idaho]

Ha so good isn't good enough?

[BlackTriton]

Good is never enough for the competitive player, top tables are for the best, not the merely good!

 

It would be allright for knight and custodes to take a step down and for somwthing else to take their place for a while, the wheel of "OP" need to be turning less the game becomes stale.

[Captain Idaho]

Nah we need balance not an ever changing contender for broken.

[Slasher956]

Unpopular opinion incoming:

 

Competitive Play Detatchment

 

2x HQ

 

2x Of a single unit type

 

1x Any other single unit type beyond the above selection

 

X maximum allowed of any unit selection

 

OR

 

3x LoW

 

This is the only allowable detatchment for use in competitive play.

 

+9 CP

 

Maximum CP in competitive play is 12 CP.

 

9 CP from detatchment, 3 CP from battleforged.

 

 

Forces people to take a varied and sizable investment for any faction they want to include beyond their first, and sets a maximum CP to prevent further spam.

Erm... have you seen the Sister of Battle list?

 

HQ - 1 + 1 character

Elite - 6

Troops - 1... yes ONE!

FA - 2

Heavy Support -2

Transports -2 + 1 FW

[BlackTriton]

Nah we need balance not an ever changing contender for broken.

We do not get a voice in this.

 

Every game system need constant change and tweek to stay fresh and relevant.

Plus there is a huge step from over-tune to over-powered to Broken!

 

If we wanted a truly balanced game we would play chess.

[Captain Idaho]

That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for balance.

[BlackTriton]

A more intwresting question then:

What is balance?

 

That any 2000 points is the same as any other 2000 points?

That seems boring, just bring anything! Its all the same!

 

That every codex get at least a single build that is top tier? Thats no good either, every (faction name) uses the same list!

 

In the current allies meta-game, a codex is only good if it brings something unique to its larger faction. So every codex sbould have something like "agents of vect", BA captain, AM battery?

 

Or is bance an internal thing, that Tac should be as valid a choice as Scout!

Yes, it should... but that dosent mean you should take either rathen than some AM infantry squad.

 

Balance is a concept that mean very little, it changes for every individual, for every subject.

 

What we should really advocate is variety, AM is more than a battery, BA is more than A few captain and custodes are more than jetbike.

The actual fix is to nerf the over-represented factions / rules, and buff the under-represented. Then the wheel turn and we do this again, bringing more variety and thus balance to the game.

 

To be relevant to the OP: there is no soup in the game, but allies are the single best way to play for now. This should be changed to bring more variety to the game.

[chapter master 454]

 

Nah we need balance not an ever changing contender for broken.

We do not get a voice in this.

 

Every game system need constant change and tweek to stay fresh and relevant.

Plus there is a huge step from over-tune to over-powered to Broken!

 

If we wanted a truly balanced game we would play chess.

 

 

The balance he talks of is the idea of balance, it isn't a goal to achieve but more an ideal to strive for. It isn't something we can ever attain but we want it because by wanting it and aiming for it, it takes us down a path that betters the game. It is why masters of any craft seek to perfect their trade but never truly do, by seeking the impossible but knowing you will never attain it will give you a far better result than merely pointing to already attained standards.

 

Even then, your point about chess isn't even correct. Yes, it is as close to balanced as any game but it still has imbalance. It is not balanced 100% (50/50 rates) and thus while you can point to it being balanced, it still has flaws (and in fact the imbalance comes from the philosopher stone of game design: First turn advantage).

 

In terms of warhammer 40k however I agree with your point and understand the rationale but we mustn't become idle in our attempts to balance things. Yes, we should take advantage of cyclic balance and how it can benefit a game in the long term but we also must be aware of massive issues in the game that need addressed as not only do these create un-fun games but also can completely destroy the progress of cyclic balance. Funny enough, to achieve cyclic balance requires its own balancing and weighting to work correctly and often many companies, while using that concept itself, only cause it by "manually" turning the wheel with patches. It wasn't so much the patch fixed things but what patches do is make players investigate things and dig around and this is what causes the cycle to shift. You need to give reason for the players to try things out.

 

Currently, we don't. We know what works, Battery Battalion is a terrible thing and needs fixed ASAP because it is such a silly concept. We have various Imperium faction lists running around with a "pocket" battalion of guardsmen and what is even worse: EVEN THE IMPERIAL GUARD LISTS DO IT TOO! It is a symptom of a system that is in theory great but wasn't given enough time in the oven: the surface was soft and flaky but the meat inside was so raw it was eating the salad. That is sadly a forming part of the game system we now know as 8th edition however, as many have pointed to the key thing that fixes it is each faction having their own detachments. 

That fix can be deployed neatly in chapter approved and even released as a free update alongside said release and then made the new norm with an Errata/FAQ invalidating the old detachments for matched play.

However we do need to address the catachan devil in the room of allies.

Going to stand in opposition here to Andy Chambers: nonsense. Allies can be balanced however it has to be part of the mechanics, not an after thoughts ad-hoc idea. There needs to be established rules and allowances for this to work. The big one is nominating your "primary" faction.

 

The idea of Allies is to open up your unit pool as to have access to certain powerful units. Guardsmen would likely want something good in melee and so some vanguard veterans from space marines would be nice (lets imagine marines are good for a minute ok...don't worry, it won't hurt much). However the problem is there isn't a cost to it as it stands. None. There are various other issues that I could go into but going to stay on track here for the time being. You need to penalise the player in some way to compensate as so the mono-faction player has a benefit. Now ofcourse we will eventually get to the stage of the game where players figure out the best option, that happens but we don't want it to be so blaringly obvious from the get go and even then if we were to dial back the try-hard, the two options shouldn't be so far apart you have to get mountain climbing gear to scale the difference! So what can the allied force give up? Stratagems, Relics and CP. Not saying all of it but a certain core restrictions, such as you can't use stratagems of one of your factions unless you have a specific "stratagem granting" character (These would be characters who enable access to stratagems even when allied but possibly at a restricted level, maybe only able to use 1 stratagem a turn) and even from there, we could add restrictions to relics and add in penalties for these allied forces (Possibly having to pay 1CP per unit that isn't from your primary selected faction).

 

However other issues arise like actually having multiple worthwhile relics and stratagems that wouldn't invalidate the restrictions by there only being restrictions worth of relics and stratagems worth going for.

[Zodd1888]

 

 

Unpopular opinion incoming:

 

Competitive Play Detatchment

 

2x HQ

 

2x Of a single unit type

 

1x Any other single unit type beyond the above selection

 

X maximum allowed of any unit selection

 

OR

 

3x LoW

 

This is the only allowable detatchment for use in competitive play.

 

+9 CP

 

Maximum CP in competitive play is 12 CP.

 

9 CP from detatchment, 3 CP from battleforged.

 

 

Forces people to take a varied and sizable investment for any faction they want to include beyond their first, and sets a maximum CP to prevent further spam.

Erm... have you seen the Sister of Battle list?

 

HQ - 1 + 1 character

Elite - 6

Troops - 1... yes ONE!

FA - 2

Heavy Support -2

Transports -2 + 1 FW

That's enough to fulfill, my verbiage was off.

 

You can duplicate your unit choices up to 3x from rule of three.

 

Ie. SoB you'd need 2x Troop, 1x Elite, and 2 HQ's to meet detatchment requirement OR 2x Elite, 1x Heavy, 2 HQ.

 

Also, SoB will likely have more options soon.

 

Bottom line is that the competitive structure regarding CP is flawed due to allies. Simplest solution is to create a easy to reach benchmark and limit total CP to even the field. There are enough limiting factors between the detachment rules and rule of 3 that making the benchmark low cost for entry shouldn't result in too much funny business with a CP limit.

[Evil Eye]

(Incoming rant on balance/badwrongfun.)

 

Balance in 40K is fundamentally impossible to achieve. Consider that chess has completely symmetrical rules and gameplay, theoretically making it very balanced, yet there are fierce arguments over whether black is at a disadvantage to white due to going second. Compare that to 40K with heavily asymmetrical gameplay and loads of different factions, and you see where I'm going with this.

 

I'm personally of the opinion that the only way to make 40K "balanced" would be to completely suck the fun out of it by removing most of the customization, variety and "your dudes" elements from the game. 40K has so many factions with so many units with so many options that the only way to make them balanced without removing whole factions would be to make them all functionally identical- and let's be real, that would suck. Without naming names I remember one user wanted 40K to replace individual weapon profiles with standardized categories- so Lasguns, Fleshborers, Shuriken Catapults etc would just be "light infantry weapons". Which to me at least sounds like a sure fire way to absolutely ruin 40K, and quite frankly I'm of the opinion that such terrible ideas need to be discouraged by any means necessary.

 

Myself I think the answer is to stop treating 40K like some kind of super-serious competitive game that needs tournaments and tierlists and absolutely perfect balance at the expense of fun, and go back to the days of "garagehammer" where every game used special scenario rules, unique terrain, bespoke setups and whatnot. Sure, you could make 40K "balanced" in theory, but the results would not be pretty. And even if you completely reworked the game to be tournament friendly we'd still be having these arguments, and no doubt some models/stratagems/entire factions banned from play for being too powerful or whatever. Look at stuff like MTG where endless arguments ensue over whether some cards should be banned or not. I don't know about you, but I don't want 40K to become like that. I know some games suffer from a "Powergamer mafia" where the "top" players pretty much make the rules on what is and isn't allowed in competitive play (and even influence the actual rules to a degree) and if anything comes along that can defeat their favourite strategies will promptly ban it. I can't recall exactly but I think the Pokemon games (both video and card) suffer from this symptom via a very silly community called Smogon that will ban anything they perceive to be "OP" (read: can beat their favourite strategies).

TLDR: Everything is ruined when people take things too seriously.