What if the FoC goes away

[Davor]

If there is no FOC, maybe broods of Carnifi (what is the pluar for Carnifex?) could be used. 2 Trygons, and a brood or 2 of Carnifix could scare the begeezes out of a few people.

Might not be viable, but then again, what do we know? Most of us just complain and Mathhammer everything without even trying it.

I am sure we will have Gargoyle Spam now. More than 3 broods of Gargs? YES!

[Overread]

I think if they removed the FOC chart they would have to significantly rebalance the points allocation system for each unit. Otherwise I'm quite certain that most of the existing codex armies would have problems with some lacking good options in certain % slots and others having way too many spammable good options.

If they did away with the FOC I think they would have to issue some kind of big errata for existing armies to address the balance. Or heck they could do what every other game brand does and update all the codexes at the same time as the base rules

[WestRider]

Jun 7, 2012 22:21:08 GMT Davor said:

If there is no FOC, maybe broods of Carnifi (what is the pluar for Carnifex?) could be used. 2 Trygons, and a brood or 2 of Carnifix could scare the begeezes out of a few people.

If there's no FOC slots, there's no real reason to combine Fexen* in Broods. Some minor reasons to run CombatFexen in pairs, but other than that, it's almost always better to split into as many Units as possible.

*That is not the correct pluralization, btw, it's just the one I like

[nameless]

Jun 7, 2012 22:21:08 GMT Davor said:

If there is no FOC, maybe broods of Carnifi (what is the pluar for Carnifex?) could be used. 2 Trygons, and a brood or 2 of Carnifix could scare the begeezes out of a few people.

You can easily do 2 trygons and a brood of 3 Carnifix at the moment. The change to 25% actually will tend to give us less options at HS.

For example, with the above setup, assuming AG on the trygons and combatfexes, you're looking at 900 points. If the rumored 25% max is true, you'd need to play games of 3600 points to do that.

[N.I.B.]

I've heard the correct pluralization of Carnifexes, is Carnifeces. That's kind of funny, and true

[gloomfang]

Jun 8, 2012 7:15:57 GMT nameless said:

You can easily do 2 trygons and a brood of 3 Carnifix at the moment. The change to 25% actually will tend to give us less options at HS.

For example, with the above setup, assuming AG on the trygons and combatfexes, you're looking at 900 points. If the rumored 25% max is true, you'd need to play games of 3600 points to do that.

That is why I think that the cap would have to be 50% for HS. Almost all of the HS options in every army take up a huge chunk of points.

[Voice of Reason]

Jun 7, 2012 0:00:44 GMT WestRider said:

I actually really like the way the FOC provides an alternate restriction to Points Cost for Units.

As it stands pretty much every Army has Units that are only balanced because of the limitation of 3 Slots, because their Points Cost really doesn't represent all that they can do. Do you want to see Space Wolves running 4-5 Long Fang Squads at 2K, or Guard really getting to spam Vendettas?

In fantasy, the % system works well, because the points costs actually seem very well tuned (I'm probably wrong on that point, though). Also, remember that loading down one section means you're skimping (or ignoring) others.

One other thing to think about is how your current army lists are split;
Fnorll's list here: thetyranidhive.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Tactics&action=display&thread=39024 has:
HQ 4.1%,
Elite 24.9%
Troop 50.7%
Heavy 20.3%
Edzilla's reported list: thetyranidhive.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Tactics&action=display&thread=39026 has:
HQ 20.6%
Elite 25%
Troops 54.3%
while the necrons had
HQ 12.6%
Elite 20.4%
Troops 17.3%
Fast 8.2%
Heavy 24.1%

My most recent necron list has
HQ 10%
Elite 13%
Troop 28%
Fast 10.6%
Heavy 21.6%

that crazy khorne army I want to build (Kharne + just berzerkers at 2500)
HQ 6.6%
Troop 93.4% (that's 5 squads of 20 with a champ+PF. 2 squads have a plasma pistol.

Heck at 1850, 9 decked out Tau Broadside suits is 48%, and 2 squads of 12 fire warriors with devilfish + modest upgrades is 24.4% it's THAT which makes me think the limitation for heavy support would probably be at 25%.

Really I don't think percentages are really going to affect most armies out there. Are some people going to go all out and spam things like Primes or 10x troop units? sure. maybe that will be mitigated by the mission structure.

[zephoid]

lol.... 50% heavy support.... 2k points? TEN wraithlord with swords and 2x flamers. Deal with 30 wounds of T8 now! Orks can do one better, 8 battlewagons with defrollas.

% force org would ruin 40k. No codex is built for it and its WAY too exploitable. changing force org chart based on HQ selection, as IA has been doing for a long time now, is a much better alternative.

[Voice of Reason]

If GW switches to %, then I really doubt they're going to go above 25% for Heavy support.

Ten wraithlords, sure. but then, Leafblower or Tau Broadside just laughs, and then asks, "who's holding the objectives?" For that matter, can you include enough warlocks (or whatever) to show them around?

Also, they may also release a raft of amendments through the FAQs, and the missions may require a finer touch than "smash teh enemy". what if they add an amendment that ups the Wraithlord price by 100 points?

There's a lot more going on than you're accounting for with blanket statements like "% force org would ruin 40k" It's just not a realistic view to take.

[zephoid]

guard and tau would not be effected much since the cost of the models are so high. You could get what... 11 broadsides over the current 9? not much difference. guard player can take more arty, but they actually could take less rus because of the high cost.

Spiriseers have a 12" radius so i would only need 2 or 3 of them. Embed them in storm guardians with melta (they go to ground for 3+ saves if shot), run a harlequin squad with shadowseer (hes a psyker) and run a farseer and you have an army thats pretty darn hard to do anything about. Even if a wraithlord is outside that range, the chance is 1 in 6.

I REALLY doubt they will create a full game errata to fix a new army system. Too much work as every single codex needs a cost rebalance, and too unit specific. GW has never modified the numbers of what you see in the codex, only the way rules are played. I really doubt they will change that now, especially since the necron codex shows no sign of these changes at all. Not only that, but it would require it all to be done WELL, and balancing one codex at a time has been hard enough for them, screw re balancing all the codexes at once.

Therefore, these changes would have to be placed in as simple percents, allowing too many armies to exploit undercosted choices that were limited by slots. SW would see 10+ lone wolves with just chainfists and nothing else. They are currently limited by slots only and they are incredibly cost effective and would play into KP (if its kept) games incredibly well. 25% would limit too many armies that depend on certain slots (3 russes in 2k points is too few). It would also hamper units that are normally cores of certain armies (no nid deathstar under 1500, no nob bikers, TW cav based armies, or warlock groups until 2k+). This would shift the game from squads to individual models that were previously limited by slots. That exactly what GW doesnt want to do. They want to sell lots of models, so the more squads you have to buy, the better.

[Voice of Reason]

Jun 8, 2012 20:24:19 GMT zephoid said:

Spiriseers have a 12" radius so i would only need 2 or 3 of them. Embed them in storm guardians with melta (they go to ground for 3+ saves if shot), run a harlequin squad with shadowseer (hes a psyker) and run a farseer and you have an army thats pretty darn hard to do anything about. Even if a wraithlord is outside that range, the chance is 1 in 6.

Easier to deal with that than the Wraithlords - and honestly, in the unlikely event that you even saw 10 wraithlords, most Nid players would be like, "well, I'm glad I brought my toxic stealers/hgaunts", DEldar would like, "well, I'm glad I brought my splinter weapons", GK would be like, "Dang, I wish I had force weapons and psychic powers to make us stronger... oh, wait." ...there are more than enough answers to something like that in the various armies.

I REALLY doubt they will create a full game errata to fix a new army system. Too much work as every single codex needs a cost rebalance, and too unit specific. GW has never modified the numbers of what you see in the codex, only the way rules are played. I really doubt they will change that now, especially since the necron codex shows no sign of these changes at all. Not only that, but it would require it all to be done WELL, and balancing one codex at a time has been hard enough for them, screw re balancing all the codexes at once.

Oh, I guess you weren't around for the Chapter Approved books from 2004 or so... They've actually done pretty much everything you said they never have and couldn't do.

Therefore, these changes would have to be placed in as simple percents, allowing too many armies to exploit undercosted choices that were limited by slots. SW would see 10+ lone wolves with just chainfists and nothing else. They are currently limited by slots only and they are incredibly cost effective and would play into KP (if its kept) games incredibly well. 25% would limit too many armies that depend on certain slots (3 russes in 2k points is too few). It would also hamper units that are normally cores of certain armies (no nid deathstar under 1500, no nob bikers, TW cav based armies, or warlock groups until 2k+). This would shift the game from squads to individual models that were previously limited by slots. That exactly what GW doesnt want to do. They want to sell lots of models, so the more squads you have to buy, the better.

I really don't see a problem with ANY of that, actually.
The biggest problem are the armies that *actually* depend on large percentages for specific slots: Necron with a large court.

Honestly curious: You don't play fantasy, do you?
My goblin army has EVERYTHING that you're complaining about, my Lord slot is usually 1 big expensive lord, my Heroes are usually a raft of cheap goblin heroes, I usually field something like 40% Core, and field the maximum number of bolt throwers, catapults and mangler squigs.

The difference is that it's not JUST 25% max Rare or Special (40k translation arguably Fast Attack and Heavy) - both of those slots say you can't exceed a specific number of duplicated units, for example, you can't take more than 2 of the same Rare - so I'm limited to 2 Doom Divers, even though at 2500 I'd be able to field 7, almost 8 of them... or almost 10 Mangler squigs. That's a limitation taht's written into the core rulebook for WHFB.
Furthermore, I'm actually able to field twice as many Spear chuckas (special) than anyone else, because the goblins have that written into their codex.

It's entirely feasible for GW to write in the core rulebook something like:
"You may field no more than 3 of the same units from the Elite, Fast Attack and Heavy"
then in the Wolf FAQ, add an amendment that says they could take, say, 6 Lone Wolves.

Edit:

Here's one of the advantages of the % system over FOC.

Right now, if you wanted to play the smallest game possible between nids and marines,
the list would look something like this:

Prime 110
boneswords, Adrenal, Regen
10x tgaunt 50
10x tgaunt 50

total of 210 points

Captain 125
Powerfist
5x scouts 100
powerfist
5x scouts 100
powerfist

total of 325
want to lay odds on the stronger army?

it's really unreasonable to build army lists at less than 500 points. With % system, I can field a HQ and a single troop, and then something fun in Elite, Heavy or Fast.

[Overread]

I think the main stumbling block here is that many people are trying to think of the current rules and points costs and then apply that to a setup with % instead of the FOC. It's obvious that taking that path isn't going to work and will show significant problems of various kinds for different armies.

As several people have said, if the FOC goes away the whole points structure of the game for all armies will need review and restructuring for the game to function. GW would have to release an FAQ at the very least for this otherwise they'd basically alienate every single player from adapting to the new rules release (simply because it wouldn't work for anyone barring possibly one codex released at the same time as the rules).

It would represent a big change to the core foundation of the 40K rules - its doable - but the question is if GW are willing to shift their market structure, which in the past has always been new models and new codex at the same time; but with staggered codex releases.

[WestRider]

Jun 8, 2012 21:56:17 GMT Overread said:

As several people have said, if the FOC goes away the whole points structure of the game for all armies will need review and restructuring for the game to function. GW would have to release an FAQ at the very least for this otherwise they'd basically alienate every single player from adapting to the new rules release (simply because it wouldn't work for anyone barring possibly one codex released at the same time as the rules).

This is pretty much my point. The FOC limitations are a fundamental part of how the current Dexes are balanced. Percentages could work, but it would require close to a ground-up rewrite of every Dex. Something on par with the 3rd Ed Rulebook Army Lists or Ravening Hordes.

Tends to clash with the statements that newer Dexes (from as far back as IG by some sources) were written with 6th Ed in mind.

[Space is pretty big]

Thinking about it, if FoC goes away, you could in theory have something like 6 broodlords in your army.

[Jabberwocky]

Jun 9, 2012 11:50:54 GMT Space is pretty big said:

Thinking about it, if FoC goes away, you could in theory have something like 6 broodlords in your army.

You already can