The issue with any restriction of this kind is that it only works under the assumption that all armies are created equal. While Space Marines and Eldar might be able to substitute with the next OP unit, Grey Knights might not.
They addressed that exact point. Perhaps optimistically, they said that Rule of 2 would give bad armies with a couple good units worse winrates, thus causing GW to balance the army overall instead of letting them coast on a couple good units.
@@FadingClarity They also talked about an exemption of some sort for battleline units. I literally own a World Eater army that happens to follow the rule of 2 with the battleline exception. It's probably not an optimal army, but it's perfectly possible. Besides, I'm not necessarily a proponent of the rule of 2, but I thought the original comment was silly for raising an argument that was addressed in the video/podcast.
I like that you guys don't always chase the trends of the hot big new thing. Keeps the content mostly evergreen. Its nice for newer guys like me to go back and watch some of the older stuff.
We're debating two topics for next week's episode we're recording tonight, one of them would make you immediately eat those words. Though, yes typically we prefer not chasing "This week in Warhammer" type content as A. our turnaround time is too slow and B. we just generally prefer talking about topics at a deeper level than reacting to this week's big news or scandal. Sometimes our drive to talk about a hot topic outweighs that though. On the plus side that means at least if you see some topical episode from us it's probably going to be emotionally driven and we'll have strong opinions.
@@thepoorhammerpodcast Just my personal input, I don't personally mind you talking about current events either. I'm not really here for specific topics, I just like watching the hosts shoot the shit about Warhammer.
@@jellydamgood Makes it more organic in my personal opinion. Most podcasts out there just have people reading off a prompt at best and at worst, a script.
GW consulted the holy book and divined that "Three shall be the number that players will count to. Not two, not four, and five is out of the question. Three.". Competitive player's, "One,two,FIVE...I mean three!"
Damn I wish some of these went on longer! I like listening to these on my very long drive home from work and it makes it feel like I'm shit talking Warhammer with the boys. Complementing new models while bashing each other's choice of faction is what the casual's and I do after a long work week haha! Keep it up you guys!
Reminds me of that old Flashgitz video where they talk about putting in half the models for double the price so that the models are worth twice as much lol.
GW could add a keyword like "Battleline X" where X is the max number of units you can have of that datasheet. Could go one step further with something like "Leman Russ X" where all datasheets sharing that keyword share that unit cap. With the new digital datacards, they could be changed pretty quickly on a per unit basis as/when skew lists popped up in tournaments.
I really appreciate how level-headed you two are. You actually approach these things with an open mind, and an effort to look at the merits and reasoning behind things. While still keeping it entertaining, too!
I admit I'm not involved in the actual tabletop, just something to listen to. But my gut reaction was "Oh you take three whole guardsmen." Because Killteam has shifted my outlook. Which, got me thinking: You could have the point limit be what determines what you can bring. Pulling points out of the aether with no bearing for an example: 200 points means you can only bring like, one leman russ while being unable to bring a titan that magically costed less than 200 points. So larger point sized games means you could bring out your "lol 7 carnifexes" Or whatever.
Rule of three I think was based off market research, but those results came to bc classic force orgs from 5th/6th was 3 of everything but troops and hqs I think they are on the right track but not small enough scale. Warmachine and Infinity each unit has an FA stat for Field Allowance. This give GW a dial to tune things up and down for representation and also make sense in fluff as each of these is on some way a regimented army with budgets and logistical concerns. They kind of touched on it with the rule of 1 for tau commanders.
I don't understand what was wrong with the old force organisation chart, I started in 5th edition and it was simple. 2 HQs, 3 Elites, 6 Troops, 3 Fast Attack and 3 Heavies. I would adapt that slightly with the adapted detachments like Vanguard (elites), Outrider (fast attack) and Spearhead (heavy support), but the broad principle still works and I don't think they've gained much by messing radically with the formula.
So AOS also had problems with this. in the last year we had stuff like nurgle fly spam where it was just a lord on a fly and as many other flies you can fit in the list or currently soulblight zombie spam/Gitz squig herd, but it happens less. I feel like one of the reasons why AOS has less problems with this is because in AOS, stuff is usually more expensive. There are many models that are 750 points in AOS that see regular play. Teclis, Archaon (Nagash if you are a mad man, he was 965 for along time, he just dropped to 900 and there is a FEC list where he is good). Daemons are more expensive. 3 flamers are 170 points. Kairos is 440. This means that you are just naturally going to see less units on the field. Tzaangor twice as expensive. This all together means that even in a slant list, you are naturally going to have less of the same unit on the board. going above 3x any warscoll almost never happens.
I like having 3 of some units, though thats mostly because I like the Idea of having 2 Identical ones and 0ne with different Armaments, to have him as a Leader for the other ones.
For most of the winning lists I've seen recently I think a rule of 2 with Battleline limit of 3 would be fine. Most armies have ways around it anyway, either by doubling up unit size or having multiple versions of the same unit. Like if you're T'au and you want Crisis Suits, currently you can run 21 of 'em at 1410 points (or a full 2k list if you have commanders running around on their own). With a 2-unit limit you could still field 14 of them for 940 points, that's much more reasonable. Similarly the Breacher+Devilfish combo is strong, but no one's going to be spending 1k points to field six of each.
The main reason I don’t think rule of 2 is it would make thousand sons list be a pain to fill out without double squading and maxing scarabs and rubrics. Or at least the way I understand the rule.
I think a good solution would be to add more keywords to models, some that say your allowed 1, some that allow 2, some that allow 3, ect ect. and that would be something that GW can change for balance. so if one model is getting out of hand and being taken too much they can reduce it.
Back in my day we could field 40,000 Warhounds behind an unassuming blade of grass with Creed and how dare GW take that away from me. I wonder if it would be okay if the rule of two/three could be broken, but doing it incurs increasingly negative effects on the units that break it for how far beyond it gets broken. An example of this might be there being a broken melee unit so someone only brings that unit to a game. Now maybe the penalty might be that specific melee unit when being shot against, the shooter gains a +1 to hit because thematically dudes running straight at you without cover fire are going to be easier to hit. It makes sense lore wise, allows anyone to play whatever they want for whatever reason, and curbs a list of a single unit twelve times because then it becomes competitivly less viable than a properly balanced army.
gw punished me decades for painting my nurgle army iron warriors because I liked the color scheme that did not have rules yet man I might have picked the worst era to start the game as chaos lmao
You are missing the obvious answer of individual unit allowances. At least in MkIII, Warmachine had everything from Force Allowance Character (one per army, full stop) to Force Allowance 1 (one per army per 'detachment') to Force Allowance Unlimited (any number per army, regardless). It would require GW to curate their rules and units though.
I would advocate for a simple "Rule of K", meaning that the limitation depends on the size od the game. You play 1K points, your limit is 1, 2K=2 and so on. Also encoporating a Keyword into the datasheets like "Leman Russ Tank" for all variants or "redemptor dreadnought" "firstborn dreadnought" so you can´t exploit the system by just taking a different datasheet with a weapon variation.
@@GirlPainting What I mean is that not every army works well with singletons at 1K, f.ex. basic Infantry heavy armies like Orks or Genestealer. They even talked about this in the Podcast that some smaller armies don't have enough options to make that work.
@@YatzeeWillWearAGreenHat well, in case of core troups you can obviously have as much as you desire. the rule is basicly for anything else that can rhuin the game balance by spaming it, as stated in the video already.
Complicated idea that doesn't really fix anything: Have progressive copies of a unit cost more points. One blade champion? 100 points. Two blade champions? 250 points. Three blade champions?? 450 points. It would mean you can field as many of something as you like.... but at a cost
have it color coded on the data sheet with gray being 4 green 3 blue 2 and gold 1. each unit can have that many copes by color. it can be some other marker other then a color but that would allow GW to stomp out problem units quickly.
Rule of 2 can not exist right now with the current ranges for factions, you've definitely covered it, implementing highlander would limit lists, same with rule of 2, some factions would not be able to exist in the 2000 point limit. Rule of two or highlander could exist with more soup variations. Highlander with different factions of space marines, or different 40k factions finally holding hands. I would have any faction soup with 25 % / 50% depending on the likely hood of the factions getting along.
Couple of problems with trying to implement rule of 3 in AoS: a lot of armies/sub factions are underdeveloped in unit choice. If you couldn't take 3 of something, you might struggle to make a 2k list. Also, things are much more expensive in AoS. A proper game-breaking unit might cost you 300-400 points. A fully reinforced unit of Varanguard or Stormfiends will reach 900 points. There are softer "rules of 3", like how you can only take a maximum of 6 leaders, 4 behemoths, and 4 artillery. Also the cap of 4 reinforcements per army limits the amount of giant death stars you can build. Additionally, a lot of armies' most powerful options are named characters that you can only take 1 of. Finally, the number of units you have can be a huge influence on the game, because whoever finishes deploying first gets to choose who goes first, so you're encouraged to take a lower-drop, more streamlined list.
I would actually like to see a Rule of Two for regular and smaller games. But it should be modified to Rule of Three for Onslaught games. So that players still have the opportunity to field more of their collection and not to be too restriced at every level of play.
You know what, a 1000pt highlander tournament sounds dope, pretty sure every faction could make a list that could be fun (if not either balanced or competitive), battleline would probably have to be allowed 2 units otherwise things like knights could struggle to fill the points effectively
4:43-4:54 I'd watch that video. As an AoS player, I can confirm that yes, Spam like that is far less prevalent. It still happens from time to time, but GW is good about hitting those strategies in better ways than just creating a "Rule of X". Usually, though, it's solved by points. 14:09 I'd also watch *that* video if you had a 16 Hour Video on what units should/shouldn't be Battleline. And I would *definitely* watch a video on the new mission format.
I think the best option is to simply add a "Unit Capacity (UC)" value to data sheets for each unit that is the highest number of units of that datasheet allowed. That, or put the value on a list for each detachment. Now "rule of X" is solved and it can easily be changed for balance purposes.
1k highlander games could be decently fun, because you'd feel the restrictions less. Tangentially, I've been bouncing the idea around in my head of a 750/1k point game where any unit you bring must cost 75 pts or less, called Weenie Wars. Most factions can make a 750pt list at 75 pts cap, though some are very much Herohammer with the restriction.
@@hereticalchappie6729 Dude owns like 12 of every nid possible, including several biotitans. However he does it because he is like, the guru of tyranid conversions. He was actually given 6 of the Carnifex kits when it was first released just to see what he would do with them. His partner in crime is Modern Synthesis "Mr Pink". EDIT: The guy's real name is Marco. Hive Fleet Moloch was originally his own custom hive fleet. The man is on a first name basis with much of the old GW staff, and actually had some input in tyranid design and helped with one of the Forge World books. His Hive Fleet was immortalized as one of the minor splinter fleets as a tribute to him.
They could just have different units have different availability limits. So ork boys have no limit on how many squads you can bring but terminators are limited at 2 squads or whatever. Solves this whole "How do we use datasheets to circumvent the rule of 3 without directly ignoring the rule of 3." Its not like it'd be that difficult to keep track of or anything.
I wonder if a maximum unit numbers for an army would work well. Like 50 guardsman per army with an individual squad size of 10. And a Carnifex being like 1 - 3 per army. Then it helps with balancing because if it's too good you just reduce the max size.
Honestly rule of three being limited to two would not be too bad as long as characters stay at 3. With leaders being how they are and limiting attachments to certain units you might want 3 apothecaries in a list, or something similar. Characters as is are cost prohibiting in lists pts wise. Going lower really limits the few armies that don't have a lot of characters and need similar buffs. (world eaters not having like majority of characters that csm has for instance). Also knights are going to have an issue with how their internal balance is so centered on spamming armigers and how really limiting to two would limit the deployment freedom on them. And while granted not every army needs 3 of one type of character, 2 is a bit limiting to them. Though other unit types, yeah, 30 of the same type of terminator is a bit much and pricing them out just makes them not get played, lowering the cap might actually help.
Honestly, i always saw unit capacity as a value that should be in datasheets. it would also make it easier for codexes to alter the value. e.g outriders would have a UC 3, so you would have a maximum of 3 outrider units. the white scar detachment could just say (increase UC of outriders 3+) added benefit, epic characters having UC 1. is much simpler.
2 seems fine for now characters for most armies, there are some armies that will probably be unplayable because because they have no other options and do not have any good battleline units. But 3 honestly feels oppressive with "free wargear". Nerfing units by raising points is terrible as you are forcing people to use the most toxic load outs to make the points feel worth it. They literally forced all eldar players to run duel heavy wraithconnons because of the points increase, and it did not change much. But if they were locked at 2 this might have not happened that way and would be easier to control.
I love the new way of building armies and the rule of 3. Is it unbalanced, yeah. But for me 40K is flavor first and faires second. And oh boy can you have flavor with this. Several hundred Tyranids.
I haven’t had an issue with the rule of 3. The rule of 2 would just break thematic armies like white scars. I have huge diverse collections so it wouldn’t hit me in any meaningful way, but I would never want to tell- for instance- a Drukhari player they can only bring 2 units of Incubi, or a death guard player that they can only bring 2 plague mortar tanks.
Honestly I don't even OWN more than two full units of any one type among my two armies with the exeption of Rubrics for Tsons (please give us more model options... even if they are just ports from CSM) and Bloodletters, who got poopoo'd on when they got dropped to 10 man squads. I don't think many players in my playgroup have more than 2 of a unit, either, with minor exceptions (like leman russes). I'd be all for the change
I got a stung when Eldar Warwalkers suddenly can't be in a squadron anymore and i owned 9 and now i can only field 3... Imperial Guard on the other hand can take 18 sentinels
I think if they were to take it down to 2 at this point space marines players would riot. We just had so much taken away by legends and then to have everyone be told their they cant run 3 units of terminators or 3 redemptors in the same list would suck. It would make even more of people's collection redundant. No one likes getting told they wasted $80 and hours of painting on a thing they can't play.
I think rule of 3 is fair. As a guard player, we don't take multiples of units for firepower, we take it for redundancy. I don't like the idea of unlocking battleline. Horus Heresy did that, and fury of the ancients proved that even a narrative driven game like 30k will have power gamers exploit things.
You didn't finish your thought..."....45th Space Marine product of the year [22 of which were Primaris Lieutenants!]. Also, Highlander format sounds awesome but I think it'd work better at 1000 points especially for the factions that don't have a large catalog.
Warmachine Mk III had a more granular "Field Allowance" system applied to ever (nonwarjack) unit. Typically this was between 1-3, and decided per unit. That said, latter Mk III still had massive skew issues due to that allowance not applying to warjacks. Latter Mk III had a notorious Cryx skew list of "Oops all Slayers" - Spamming 10 or 11 dirt cheap, frail heavies. Sure, you might shoot the arms off a couple of them before they closed, but the rest would rip you apart. I think "Rule of 3" is a decent baseline from a hobby perspective - 3 is a nice number, where if you really like a kit you can lean into it without necessarily overstepping the allowable limit. But I also look askance at sisters players who immediately looked at the index and said, "I'm going to be running 3 exorcists". No one had three exorcists before that index dropped! Even if it is a gorgeous kit. 1 pipe organ tank is cool. 3 pipe organ tanks is overcommitting to the bit.
Remove that restriction but impose a victory point penalty for repeats of the same unit. I'm thinking penalty instead of bonus for force diversity, just because some armies tend to have vastly more units than others.
I think the final straw for gw to make the rule of 3 was a really good player at the time was running 5-7 demon princes in their list. That GW event went exactly as youd imagine considering all the chaos shenanigans back then
3 has a powerful aesthetic symmetry. If you want to say, "My army is an x army," taking 3 of them feels like more of an impactful decision than just taking 2. With rule of 2, you just take 2 of the best thing and your army has little identity beyond "2, 1, 0." This speaking as a Relentless Rats player who hasn't played 40k in ages.
The rule of 1 is better for 1k because of named characters and combat patrols make that easier to fill out. But the battle line rule stays the same because intercessors are in every space marines box set! But you can definitely run knights like that.
Listening to this entire podcast and all I can think of is: "This is the shit I've been saying about T'au for ages. The only reason anyone thinks we're balanced is fucking Triptide and Drone Spam and the moment that was taken from us, how did things end up? We're bottom of the barrel and fucked beyond belief, just as I said we would be.
The only issue i have with the rule of 3 is i have a dream of making a list of only hormogaunts/termogaunts as the singlehanded stupidest idea ive ever almost pulled the trigger on. I might do it on a home game with a friend to just have fun with it but the idea of buying, making, painting, and then placing 2k points of hormies/termies is so stupid and funny to me. I wanna roll like 300 dice and get 2 hits against a custodes player lmao In reality, i know its much better for the game, but the carpet of hormogaunts calls to the monkey part of my brain
Solely singleton defo feels like an incursion level game that would be fun. Also for 2’s I think battleline maxed at 4 (6 is double rule of 3 after all) would balance it well
Rule of three existed before in 3rd and 4th edition (maybe longer) where you could only have 3 of each type, be it HQ/Elites/Heavy Support/Fast Attack. Troops were unrestricted.
In 3rd and 4th Troops weren't unrestricted. You had to take 2 and no more than 6. Guard had the infantry platoon. A single troop choice that was a 5 man command squad and 2-6 10 man infantry squads. Then you started adding all the extra squads and units like HWTs and Sentinels. Once you filled out the minimum requirements of the platoon you unlocked the Iron Fist squad of 10 infantry in a chimera. So the two minimum troop requirements for guard were 35 infantry models and a chimera. The space marine player just buys a single troop box and splits it in half. Then you have all the other outliers. Craftworld Eldar, Terminators as troops, extra heavy Iron Warriors, extra troop Word Bearers, extra fast attack Night Lords... There were a lot of exceptions.
Didn't the Tyranids have a period of time where you could run all Warriors and Rippers? Like 15 boxes got you 5 squads of 5 warriors and 3 units of 5 rippers.
Rule of 2 is unacceptable for any army that relies on non-battleline making up the meat of their army, notably the T'au. An Onslaught-sized army would get utterly strangled with only two crisis battlesuit units, with three already being a little restrictive when you want them equipped in a diversity of roles (eg, two battlesuit units with cyclic ion blasters and two with fusion blasters). You can keep adding exceptions upon exceptions until your face turns blue, it's just going to become a new headache to balance. Going further, in order for the issues mentioned in the videos to be "fixed" for many factions, GW would have to generate dramatically more unit types to fill the gaps that multiples of the same unit used to, or, more likely, they don't do that at all and lesser-played factions rot.
I'd rather go back to proper force orgs than see a rule of 2 but then my army as a whole has 7 units to choose from so I am not exactly rolling in options and probably the only faction that struggles with the rule of 3 *shrugs*
the problem whit rule of 2 would largely be whit armies like Tyranids that have concept like Synaps you are killing the synaps web whit limiting the numbers to much but i fully understand where you are coming from and they could fix it by making Synaps 9 inc base i run my army normally as units of 1 and 2 its only when i go heavy in to theme that i go 3 squads of something
There are so many battle reports I've stopped watching 2 minutes in because of unit spam. Frankly I never really thought about "highlander", but it sounds fun for crusade in particular.
I will never forget or forgive GW for starting a Harlequin army then stopping. I would assume in their eyes they don’t sell. Well why would they sell when the army has like only 6-8 units.
I have the same problem, but all 2nd edition plastic ones. Gonna split them up across my 2nd and 3rd Tyranid armies and Genestealer cult. That way, I have a reason to buy more.
I've always liked warmachine's solution to this, which that each unit has a stat for unit allocation which is just the maximum number of a unit you can take. I think it's a nice way to limit and adjust for specific models without accidently affecting other units, though that would by a lot more work for GW to go through and decide for each model.
I also commented this but for the squad based game Infinity. Very similar system that I’m really surprised hasn’t been implemented in 40k given they now restrict squad sizes.
We had that in Warhammer also. When I started playing, at the start of 3rd edition, some units had built-in restrictions. 0-1, or 1+, or 0-2. and that was on top of the Force organization chart.
Yep and it stops them trying to stop spam by just increasing points. I would be happy if they limited the Sanguinary Guard to two maximum if they kept the points reasonable (hell make them cheap enough and I would be happy if all I could take is one full unit if them). They are ridiculous at the moment considering they don't have an invulnerable save and can't even have a Sanguinary Priest join them and it is because they were spammed in Arks of Omen so GW seemed to have over-reacted.
I think as you say the reason was originally rule of three was due to force org charts since those used to be up to 2 hq, 6 troops, 3 elites, 3 fast attack 3 heavy support, so as you said many older players may have had triples in their collections from that while more than three was a lot more rare (since that'd require multiple force org charts in play so it only happened in truly giant games)
It is safer for FUTURE collection. Unless they increase the size of units, like was mentioned in the video, or use some other lever to balance it people who have been collecting for a while especially those that collect one or two armies would see good chunks of their collections become unusable. Just look at poor WE players that have been playing for a while. They lost massive chunks of their collections as "playable options" for their factions. Sure there is an argument that when they lost the first wave they could "just play CSM instead" but that isn't an option for the large chunk of FW models that are no longer playable. I would forsee a similar thing happening if GW went to rule of 2.
@@rmcdaniel2424 Bingo. For each of my armies I follow 1 of each, barring rare exceptions and battleline. Protects you from any big swings in the rules.
As an old crusty player, my frustration with rule of 3 is not that its too restrictive, but that it is yet another rule that had to be reinvented after GW threw out everything that had be solved for decades. The Force Organization chart was good, it made an army feel coherent and thematic for casual players, and kept competitive players from bringing too much shit.
@@avlaenamnell6994 I would like to see the Horus Heresy expanded into a full edition of 40k. It's a pipe dream, but I think Eldar especially could have very cool reactions, and making special units into troops is like 75% of Rites of War.
@@avlaenamnell6994 I dont know third or second edition, but since 4th edition Aspects and Wraiths are vell divided between Troops, Elite, Fast Attack and Support
I do wonder how harlequins would even make an army, they can’t reach 3k currently and they honestly only take roughly like a 465 point hit for characters, 1 voidweaver, 1 group of 4 Skyweavers, and 1 Starweaver becuase the character limit went down. Which would make it so they can barley get over. I desperately hope they get a dual kit when the codex comes out that gives them more options.
harlequins didnt get an index, you are very optimistic if you think theyre getting a codex, at best theyre gonna have a section in the aeldari codex that lets you run some harlequins in an aeldari army
So in earlier editions of Warhammer, they actually implimented some of the stuff you mentioned. These were the "1+" restriction, "0-1" restriction, and "Changing Battlefield Role". So for example in Tau, Fire Warriors were 1+ in 3rd edition. This meant that no matter what your army composition is, you *must* field at least one unit of Fire Warriors. Since Fire Warriors were also troops, this fulfilled one of your two minimum troop choices. On the other hand, Ethereals were 0-1, meaning you could only have up to one of them in your army. On top of this, special characters counted towards this (although at the time the only named Ethereal was Aun'Shi; Aun'Va didn't exist as a model yet). This was the Warhammer equivallent of singleton/highlander/No Nut November. Then there was the "Change Battlefield Role" things. This was technically there in 3rd but formally introduced as a game mechanic in late 4th. Basically, through some special rules or characters, a certain unit would change battlefield roles. This often changed something to Troops to allow you to field them as compulsory choices, but also some changed slots to let you field more without being compulsory (like Carnifexes becoming Elites if they're under 115 points. See my other comment about Hive Fleet Moloch and why they're insane). As for the problems with spam, this was what the original FoC was designed to do (and something still very few people realize) the Hard limit of 3 choices in each slot meant that spam is harder to do, while the "Troop tax" was intentionally meant to siphon your point costs. However it was a poor system for scaling up because you always had to buy exactly 2 troop choices, so bigger size games were more prone to imbalances. Ironically, this meant that at the time the game was balanced for 1500 points, rather than the 2k we are comfortable with now. Fantasy, and by extension AoS, had a better mechanic where they divided units into broad categories and had minimum and maximum point limits for each one, which I really want 40k to impliment. They can kinda do this with Battleline (25% minimum on Battleline) and characters (no more than 50% of your points on Characters) but there's no way to fix it for anything else since they got rid of the Elites/HS/FA/Fliers/LoW designation. Me and my friend are going to attempt this to see how well it goes after we had a normal game of 10th edition and my Keeper of Secrets made a bitch of his entire blueberry army with her whip.
tyranid warriors in 3rd had theb ability to be taken as either HQ or elite, and you could custom evollve new nids which sometimes changed their place on their force organisation chart
I am just glad they have four types of infantry squads now, my IG army used to have 50 models in a single troop choice and I need the option back to field them.
AoS has different rules, which limit spamming without the rule of 3 or 2, you have a minimum amount of battleline, and then you have a maximum number of Heroes, Behemots and Artillery, so only if you want to really spam the same unit, youll have to spam battleline, which is ok with most people
I really dislike the new fixed squad size, but I definitely feel what you said about a faction not feeling healthy despite a high win rate. I play Adeptus Mechanicus, and I really hated that time in 9th when AdMech was utterly broken because I didn't want to play 40 vanguards with the Irradiated Forge World rule and enriched rounds. That's unsurvivable for basically anything you shoot at, and it isn't fun, or flavorful. Not to mention, I started playing with Kill Team, because AdMech is damn expensive to collect and I don't really want to buy 4 boxes or scrounge from eBay to get 40 vanguards.
I think variable squad sizes/point per model will return with the codexes/end of year points changes. the tournament scene will cry havoc otherwise and we all know that's who james listens to the most
@@Eddy_Grimm I don't think PPM is coming back anytime soon. Unit size interacts with Leaders, Blast, transports, and Reserves too closely now. It's a lever to balance. For example, in a 2000pt game I cannot place a max sized Scarab Occult unit with a Sorc Terminator in Deep Strike. It's about 10 or so points over the 500pt reserves limit. If there was PMM then I'd drop a model and could, but it clearly seems to be pointed specifically to either take a min size with leader into DS or footslog/transport a max size.
@@KRdHaene the fact that you cant put the deep strike unit in deep strike shows how stupid it is. though i do believe that although strategic reserves are 25%, deep strike is general reserves which (i believe) is 50%. (page 43)
@@Eddy_Grimm I stand corrected on the percentage of points allowed in Reserves v. Strategic Reserves. I internalized the 25% since I have not looked at the Leviathan mission pack where the 50% rule for all Reserves is stated. I still stand by the argument that fixed unit sizes are a major balance lever, both for how armies are constructed and the level of power each unit has. I don't believe it is going anywhere anytime soon.
As someone just getting into the hobby, I wish the force organization stuff wasn’t scrapped completely as it gave some idea of army structure. I was trying to find the guidelines for army building in 10th to plan my first army, and only having the rule of 3 leaves me having no idea where to even start. Pick an HQ and play what you like in a faction works well if you already know how to create a balanced force, but at this point I’m just kind of winging it and more structure would be helpful.
As someone who just getting into the hobby, I just wish GW would stop sucking Space Marines's D and give more attention to other xenos. Right now they exist either as plot convinience or Space Marine's punching bag to show players how buffed Space Marines are.
Speaking of the Nid stuff. I remember when you did the Faction's Knights and said Nids would've passed if given enough time. Indeed, the Emissary is a proper Nid Knight.
@@jerryjezzaberry5009I dunno. They picked smaller stuff for other factions too. Remember it had to be big enough and have that high Timmy factor. I think the Emissary passes quite well.
@DominatorLegend yeah I think it's a *big* model but not Knight sized the proportions don't work out for it to be that large or comparable. I'm guessing it's closer to the avatar of khaine of maybe great unclean one rather then an actual knight
@DominatorLegend yeah in statline but actual size ? Nah it's a rotund model but nowhere near as impressive as a Knight. The only chaos deamons who get close to the scale and wow factor of the Knight are the Lord of change and bloodthirster.
I miss the old 3rd Ed Force Org. No nonsense: 1 HQ & 2 Troops minimum. Max of 2 HQ, 3 Elite, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support, 6 Troops. Same for every standard army. If a unit was unique or powerful, it would have its own limit of 0-1, 0-2, etc. If you had a specific chapter, hive fleet, craftworld, etc. then it usually gave you a trade-off, so Biel-Tan had all your Aspect Warriors becoming troops but pretty much everything else became an elite choice. Extremely simple to grok.
I was wondering if there was someone here who remembered that, or if I had simply imagined that or misunderstood the force org back in 3rd. Imagine a petulant 14 year old (me) deciding to take 3 looted basilisks for an ork army with indirect fire…
I remember a few months ago seeing this Beastmen (Beasts of Chaos) army list that was pretty much, "Oops, all Chaos Spawn!" Like, except for one or two characters, it was all units of Chaos Spawn. But the player had actually individually named the Chaos Spawn with whimsical names, it was great!
On the topic of AOS, we don’t have as much of a spam problem because Battleline does the job, plus we’re only allowed to “reinforce” a unit beyond minimum 4 times. So the only way to, say, spam Stegadons in Seraphon is to take the sub faction that makes them battleline, and then GW can balance around that, plus you don’t get a ton else in that subfaction. Much cleaner IMO but it comes with the battleline tax that some people don’t like because then they have to run generic troops
@@shuwan4games Good point, I forgot about how much of a success Core Battalions are. 40K 9th detachments but you don’t have to take them unless you want their specific bonuses. It’s the exact right way to do that imo.
Here's my big brain idea: You know those nice, once page detachment rules that outline the fighting style of your particular force? Put a force org chart on them. They've already suggested a similar thing with changing battleline on those cards, why not go all the way?
Could be cool for armies having unique keyword restrictions like the one commander per detachment thing but instead be "five dreadnought keyword units per army" something like that.
They've already experimented with that with Lucius the Eternal in CSM, which turns Noise Marines into Battleline so you can just. Bring six squads of Noise Marines
This must be something that changes drastically based on your playgroup lol. 3 has always felt about right to me, in that I've never really had a unit that I would even want more than 3 of, but I have played other games more competitively and could see how a sweaty player could break things if they wanted to. Still, I would be very sad if they went down to 2.
5:42 Actual old nerds like me will know you were limited to 2 HQ choices anyway under the old force org chart 2 HQ 3 Elites, 6 Troops, 3 Fast Attack, 3 Heavy Support
It perfectly encapsulates my feelings as an AoS player about Slant lists. Playing against an army that’s just nothing but one unit just makes me bored. It feels like there’s not much tactics but instead I’m just beaten by stat sticks.
I'm not a competitive player, but You play to WIN. If it's broken, that's GW's fault, not the players. You can't fault the players for trying to WIN A GAME, that's the whole point.
The issue with any restriction of this kind is that it only works under the assumption that all armies are created equal. While Space Marines and Eldar might be able to substitute with the next OP unit, Grey Knights might not.
They addressed that exact point. Perhaps optimistically, they said that Rule of 2 would give bad armies with a couple good units worse winrates, thus causing GW to balance the army overall instead of letting them coast on a couple good units.
@@jeffreymonsell659 unless you're a harlequin or world eater player in which case you can't play the game with a rule of 2
@@FadingClarity ahhh, tis not that bad, WE have way enough datasheets for rule of 2 plus Battelline exemptions.
@@FadingClarity They also talked about an exemption of some sort for battleline units.
I literally own a World Eater army that happens to follow the rule of 2 with the battleline exception. It's probably not an optimal army, but it's perfectly possible.
Besides, I'm not necessarily a proponent of the rule of 2, but I thought the original comment was silly for raising an argument that was addressed in the video/podcast.
@@FadingClarity Harlequins are indeed in a death spiral though.
I like that you guys don't always chase the trends of the hot big new thing.
Keeps the content mostly evergreen. Its nice for newer guys like me to go back and watch some of the older stuff.
We're debating two topics for next week's episode we're recording tonight, one of them would make you immediately eat those words. Though, yes typically we prefer not chasing "This week in Warhammer" type content as A. our turnaround time is too slow and B. we just generally prefer talking about topics at a deeper level than reacting to this week's big news or scandal. Sometimes our drive to talk about a hot topic outweighs that though. On the plus side that means at least if you see some topical episode from us it's probably going to be emotionally driven and we'll have strong opinions.
@@thepoorhammerpodcast Just my personal input, I don't personally mind you talking about current events either. I'm not really here for specific topics, I just like watching the hosts shoot the shit about Warhammer.
Non stop focus on the wraithknights tells me this is a reactionary topic.
@@jellydamgood Makes it more organic in my personal opinion. Most podcasts out there just have people reading off a prompt at best and at worst, a script.
GW consulted the holy book and divined that "Three shall be the number that players will count to. Not two, not four, and five is out of the question. Three.".
Competitive player's, "One,two,FIVE...I mean three!"
Five...is RIGHT OUT
five is right out
Damn I wish some of these went on longer! I like listening to these on my very long drive home from work and it makes it feel like I'm shit talking Warhammer with the boys. Complementing new models while bashing each other's choice of faction is what the casual's and I do after a long work week haha! Keep it up you guys!
Lictor kit probably isn't gonna be THAT much more expensive... though literally contains half as many lictors as the current kit to make up for it.
Reminds me of that old Flashgitz video where they talk about putting in half the models for double the price so that the models are worth twice as much lol.
wdym? the current lictor kit has one?
There's only one lictor in the current kit and it's really old.
@surrenderfleet You alright mate? Are you having a stroke? Half the Lictors?
Clearly this joke didn't play out as well as I'd hoped lol...
GW could add a keyword like "Battleline X" where X is the max number of units you can have of that datasheet. Could go one step further with something like "Leman Russ X" where all datasheets sharing that keyword share that unit cap. With the new digital datacards, they could be changed pretty quickly on a per unit basis as/when skew lists popped up in tournaments.
I really appreciate how level-headed you two are. You actually approach these things with an open mind, and an effort to look at the merits and reasoning behind things. While still keeping it entertaining, too!
I did a slow grow highlander league for Aoo and it was amazing. We started with a character and a battleline unit and worked up one game at a time.
I love this idea for crusade.
@@Eddy_Grimm that's what it was. And it was absolutely wonderful, the lists that came out of that are some of the most creative I've seen
I really like Bolt Action's army building. Makes armies play and feel more like functional units.
I mean 7 Hive Tyrants is just POV: You're being invaded by a Hive fleet and you're a guardsmen.
I admit I'm not involved in the actual tabletop, just something to listen to.
But my gut reaction was "Oh you take three whole guardsmen." Because Killteam has shifted my outlook.
Which, got me thinking: You could have the point limit be what determines what you can bring. Pulling points out of the aether with no bearing for an example:
200 points means you can only bring like, one leman russ while being unable to bring a titan that magically costed less than 200 points.
So larger point sized games means you could bring out your "lol 7 carnifexes" Or whatever.
Rule of three I think was based off market research, but those results came to bc classic force orgs from 5th/6th was 3 of everything but troops and hqs
I think they are on the right track but not small enough scale. Warmachine and Infinity each unit has an FA stat for Field Allowance. This give GW a dial to tune things up and down for representation and also make sense in fluff as each of these is on some way a regimented army with budgets and logistical concerns. They kind of touched on it with the rule of 1 for tau commanders.
I don't understand what was wrong with the old force organisation chart, I started in 5th edition and it was simple.
2 HQs, 3 Elites, 6 Troops, 3 Fast Attack and 3 Heavies.
I would adapt that slightly with the adapted detachments like Vanguard (elites), Outrider (fast attack) and Spearhead (heavy support), but the broad principle still works and I don't think they've gained much by messing radically with the formula.
So AOS also had problems with this. in the last year we had stuff like nurgle fly spam where it was just a lord on a fly and as many other flies you can fit in the list or currently soulblight zombie spam/Gitz squig herd, but it happens less. I feel like one of the reasons why AOS has less problems with this is because in AOS, stuff is usually more expensive.
There are many models that are 750 points in AOS that see regular play. Teclis, Archaon (Nagash if you are a mad man, he was 965 for along time, he just dropped to 900 and there is a FEC list where he is good). Daemons are more expensive. 3 flamers are 170 points. Kairos is 440. This means that you are just naturally going to see less units on the field. Tzaangor twice as expensive. This all together means that even in a slant list, you are naturally going to have less of the same unit on the board. going above 3x any warscoll almost never happens.
I like having 3 of some units, though thats mostly because I like the Idea of having 2 Identical ones and 0ne with different Armaments, to have him as a Leader for the other ones.
For most of the winning lists I've seen recently I think a rule of 2 with Battleline limit of 3 would be fine. Most armies have ways around it anyway, either by doubling up unit size or having multiple versions of the same unit. Like if you're T'au and you want Crisis Suits, currently you can run 21 of 'em at 1410 points (or a full 2k list if you have commanders running around on their own). With a 2-unit limit you could still field 14 of them for 940 points, that's much more reasonable. Similarly the Breacher+Devilfish combo is strong, but no one's going to be spending 1k points to field six of each.
The main reason I don’t think rule of 2 is it would make thousand sons list be a pain to fill out without double squading and maxing scarabs and rubrics. Or at least the way I understand the rule.
I would be fine with them bringing 0-1 options back with specific units
I think a good solution would be to add more keywords to models, some that say your allowed 1, some that allow 2, some that allow 3, ect ect. and that would be something that GW can change for balance. so if one model is getting out of hand and being taken too much they can reduce it.
Back in my day we could field 40,000 Warhounds behind an unassuming blade of grass with Creed and how dare GW take that away from me.
I wonder if it would be okay if the rule of two/three could be broken, but doing it incurs increasingly negative effects on the units that break it for how far beyond it gets broken.
An example of this might be there being a broken melee unit so someone only brings that unit to a game. Now maybe the penalty might be that specific melee unit when being shot against, the shooter gains a +1 to hit because thematically dudes running straight at you without cover fire are going to be easier to hit. It makes sense lore wise, allows anyone to play whatever they want for whatever reason, and curbs a list of a single unit twelve times because then it becomes competitivly less viable than a properly balanced army.
gw punished me decades for painting my nurgle army iron warriors because I liked the color scheme that did not have rules yet
man I might have picked the worst era to start the game as chaos lmao
You are missing the obvious answer of individual unit allowances. At least in MkIII, Warmachine had everything from Force Allowance Character (one per army, full stop) to Force Allowance 1 (one per army per 'detachment') to Force Allowance Unlimited (any number per army, regardless). It would require GW to curate their rules and units though.
I would advocate for a simple "Rule of K", meaning that the limitation depends on the size od the game. You play 1K points, your limit is 1, 2K=2 and so on. Also encoporating a Keyword into the datasheets like "Leman Russ Tank" for all variants or "redemptor dreadnought" "firstborn dreadnought" so you can´t exploit the system by just taking a different datasheet with a weapon variation.
Sounds fun at first, but it results in dumb stuff like Orks only being allowed to run 1 unit of Grots in 1000p matches.
@@YatzeeWillWearAGreenHat yes, and? i don´t see the problem
@@GirlPainting What I mean is that not every army works well with singletons at 1K, f.ex. basic Infantry heavy armies like Orks or Genestealer. They even talked about this in the Podcast that some smaller armies don't have enough options to make that work.
@@YatzeeWillWearAGreenHat well, in case of core troups you can obviously have as much as you desire. the rule is basicly for anything else that can rhuin the game balance by spaming it, as stated in the video already.
Complicated idea that doesn't really fix anything: Have progressive copies of a unit cost more points. One blade champion? 100 points. Two blade champions? 250 points. Three blade champions?? 450 points. It would mean you can field as many of something as you like.... but at a cost
have it color coded on the data sheet with gray being 4 green 3 blue 2 and gold 1. each unit can have that many copes by color. it can be some other marker other then a color but that would allow GW to stomp out problem units quickly.
Rule of 2 can not exist right now with the current ranges for factions, you've definitely covered it, implementing highlander would limit lists, same with rule of 2, some factions would not be able to exist in the 2000 point limit. Rule of two or highlander could exist with more soup variations. Highlander with different factions of space marines, or different 40k factions finally holding hands. I would have any faction soup with 25 % / 50% depending on the likely hood of the factions getting along.
Couple of problems with trying to implement rule of 3 in AoS: a lot of armies/sub factions are underdeveloped in unit choice. If you couldn't take 3 of something, you might struggle to make a 2k list. Also, things are much more expensive in AoS. A proper game-breaking unit might cost you 300-400 points. A fully reinforced unit of Varanguard or Stormfiends will reach 900 points.
There are softer "rules of 3", like how you can only take a maximum of 6 leaders, 4 behemoths, and 4 artillery. Also the cap of 4 reinforcements per army limits the amount of giant death stars you can build. Additionally, a lot of armies' most powerful options are named characters that you can only take 1 of. Finally, the number of units you have can be a huge influence on the game, because whoever finishes deploying first gets to choose who goes first, so you're encouraged to take a lower-drop, more streamlined list.
I would actually like to see a Rule of Two for regular and smaller games. But it should be modified to Rule of Three for Onslaught games.
So that players still have the opportunity to field more of their collection and not to be too restriced at every level of play.
You know what, a 1000pt highlander tournament sounds dope, pretty sure every faction could make a list that could be fun (if not either balanced or competitive), battleline would probably have to be allowed 2 units otherwise things like knights could struggle to fill the points effectively
4:43-4:54 I'd watch that video. As an AoS player, I can confirm that yes, Spam like that is far less prevalent. It still happens from time to time, but GW is good about hitting those strategies in better ways than just creating a "Rule of X". Usually, though, it's solved by points.
14:09 I'd also watch *that* video if you had a 16 Hour Video on what units should/shouldn't be Battleline.
And I would *definitely* watch a video on the new mission format.
Aos has unit caps. But its "bring at most of x unit type insead of x of a specific unit.
I think the best option is to simply add a "Unit Capacity (UC)" value to data sheets for each unit that is the highest number of units of that datasheet allowed. That, or put the value on a list for each detachment. Now "rule of X" is solved and it can easily be changed for balance purposes.
1k highlander games could be decently fun, because you'd feel the restrictions less.
Tangentially, I've been bouncing the idea around in my head of a 750/1k point game where any unit you bring must cost 75 pts or less, called Weenie Wars. Most factions can make a 750pt list at 75 pts cap, though some are very much Herohammer with the restriction.
"Buying seven of the same kit is borderline mental"
Sir might I introduce you to Hive Fleet Moloch.
Wait what's up with Moloch?
@@hereticalchappie6729 Dude owns like 12 of every nid possible, including several biotitans. However he does it because he is like, the guru of tyranid conversions. He was actually given 6 of the Carnifex kits when it was first released just to see what he would do with them. His partner in crime is Modern Synthesis "Mr Pink".
EDIT: The guy's real name is Marco. Hive Fleet Moloch was originally his own custom hive fleet. The man is on a first name basis with much of the old GW staff, and actually had some input in tyranid design and helped with one of the Forge World books. His Hive Fleet was immortalized as one of the minor splinter fleets as a tribute to him.
We need a separate ruleset just for competitive players bro. Nobody does those crazy things but them
“It’s one of those…”- Brad and Eric 57 times an episode lol
They could just have different units have different availability limits. So ork boys have no limit on how many squads you can bring but terminators are limited at 2 squads or whatever. Solves this whole "How do we use datasheets to circumvent the rule of 3 without directly ignoring the rule of 3." Its not like it'd be that difficult to keep track of or anything.
I wonder if a maximum unit numbers for an army would work well. Like 50 guardsman per army with an individual squad size of 10. And a Carnifex being like 1 - 3 per army. Then it helps with balancing because if it's too good you just reduce the max size.
Honestly rule of three being limited to two would not be too bad as long as characters stay at 3. With leaders being how they are and limiting attachments to certain units you might want 3 apothecaries in a list, or something similar. Characters as is are cost prohibiting in lists pts wise. Going lower really limits the few armies that don't have a lot of characters and need similar buffs. (world eaters not having like majority of characters that csm has for instance). Also knights are going to have an issue with how their internal balance is so centered on spamming armigers and how really limiting to two would limit the deployment freedom on them. And while granted not every army needs 3 of one type of character, 2 is a bit limiting to them. Though other unit types, yeah, 30 of the same type of terminator is a bit much and pricing them out just makes them not get played, lowering the cap might actually help.
Honestly, i always saw unit capacity as a value that should be in datasheets. it would also make it easier for codexes to alter the value. e.g outriders would have a UC 3, so you would have a maximum of 3 outrider units. the white scar detachment could just say (increase UC of outriders 3+)
added benefit, epic characters having UC 1. is much simpler.
2 seems fine for now characters for most armies, there are some armies that will probably be unplayable because because they have no other options and do not have any good battleline units. But 3 honestly feels oppressive with "free wargear". Nerfing units by raising points is terrible as you are forcing people to use the most toxic load outs to make the points feel worth it. They literally forced all eldar players to run duel heavy wraithconnons because of the points increase, and it did not change much. But if they were locked at 2 this might have not happened that way and would be easier to control.
I love the new way of building armies and the rule of 3. Is it unbalanced, yeah. But for me 40K is flavor first and faires second. And oh boy can you have flavor with this.
Several hundred Tyranids.
I haven’t had an issue with the rule of 3. The rule of 2 would just break thematic armies like white scars.
I have huge diverse collections so it wouldn’t hit me in any meaningful way, but I would never want to tell- for instance- a Drukhari player they can only bring 2 units of Incubi, or a death guard player that they can only bring 2 plague mortar tanks.
Honestly I don't even OWN more than two full units of any one type among my two armies with the exeption of Rubrics for Tsons (please give us more model options... even if they are just ports from CSM) and Bloodletters, who got poopoo'd on when they got dropped to 10 man squads. I don't think many players in my playgroup have more than 2 of a unit, either, with minor exceptions (like leman russes). I'd be all for the change
I got a stung when Eldar Warwalkers suddenly can't be in a squadron anymore and i owned 9 and now i can only field 3...
Imperial Guard on the other hand can take 18 sentinels
I think if they were to take it down to 2 at this point space marines players would riot. We just had so much taken away by legends and then to have everyone be told their they cant run 3 units of terminators or 3 redemptors in the same list would suck. It would make even more of people's collection redundant. No one likes getting told they wasted $80 and hours of painting on a thing they can't play.
I sure do love when my buddy brings 8 lemun russ tanks, because why wouldn’t he.
I think rule of 3 is fair. As a guard player, we don't take multiples of units for firepower, we take it for redundancy.
I don't like the idea of unlocking battleline. Horus Heresy did that, and fury of the ancients proved that even a narrative driven game like 30k will have power gamers exploit things.
What about Highlander format with 1000 points?
World Eaters wouldn't have the "too few units" problem if they kept most of the CSM options THEY HAVE HAD FOR YEARS...
You didn't finish your thought..."....45th Space Marine product of the year [22 of which were Primaris Lieutenants!].
Also, Highlander format sounds awesome but I think it'd work better at 1000 points especially for the factions that don't have a large catalog.
Warmachine Mk III had a more granular "Field Allowance" system applied to ever (nonwarjack) unit. Typically this was between 1-3, and decided per unit. That said, latter Mk III still had massive skew issues due to that allowance not applying to warjacks. Latter Mk III had a notorious Cryx skew list of "Oops all Slayers" - Spamming 10 or 11 dirt cheap, frail heavies. Sure, you might shoot the arms off a couple of them before they closed, but the rest would rip you apart.
I think "Rule of 3" is a decent baseline from a hobby perspective - 3 is a nice number, where if you really like a kit you can lean into it without necessarily overstepping the allowable limit. But I also look askance at sisters players who immediately looked at the index and said, "I'm going to be running 3 exorcists". No one had three exorcists before that index dropped! Even if it is a gorgeous kit. 1 pipe organ tank is cool. 3 pipe organ tanks is overcommitting to the bit.
Maybe a solution could be rule of 3 for non vehicle or monster models, and then rule of 2 for vehicles and monsters
Remove that restriction but impose a victory point penalty for repeats of the same unit. I'm thinking penalty instead of bonus for force diversity, just because some armies tend to have vastly more units than others.
Remove all the restrictions and cut the points of every broken unit in half. Let's all run fifteen Hive Tyrants! It'll be fun, I promise!
I think the final straw for gw to make the rule of 3 was a really good player at the time was running 5-7 demon princes in their list. That GW event went exactly as youd imagine considering all the chaos shenanigans back then
3 has a powerful aesthetic symmetry. If you want to say, "My army is an x army," taking 3 of them feels like more of an impactful decision than just taking 2. With rule of 2, you just take 2 of the best thing and your army has little identity beyond "2, 1, 0."
This speaking as a Relentless Rats player who hasn't played 40k in ages.
The rule of 1 is better for 1k because of named characters and combat patrols make that easier to fill out. But the battle line rule stays the same because intercessors are in every space marines box set! But you can definitely run knights like that.
Listening to this entire podcast and all I can think of is: "This is the shit I've been saying about T'au for ages. The only reason anyone thinks we're balanced is fucking Triptide and Drone Spam and the moment that was taken from us, how did things end up? We're bottom of the barrel and fucked beyond belief, just as I said we would be.
Commander Warhammer seems like an awesome idea!!!
The only issue i have with the rule of 3 is i have a dream of making a list of only hormogaunts/termogaunts as the singlehanded stupidest idea ive ever almost pulled the trigger on. I might do it on a home game with a friend to just have fun with it but the idea of buying, making, painting, and then placing 2k points of hormies/termies is so stupid and funny to me. I wanna roll like 300 dice and get 2 hits against a custodes player lmao
In reality, i know its much better for the game, but the carpet of hormogaunts calls to the monkey part of my brain
Solely singleton defo feels like an incursion level game that would be fun. Also for 2’s I think battleline maxed at 4 (6 is double rule of 3 after all) would balance it well
Rule of three existed before in 3rd and 4th edition (maybe longer) where you could only have 3 of each type, be it HQ/Elites/Heavy Support/Fast Attack. Troops were unrestricted.
In 3rd and 4th Troops weren't unrestricted. You had to take 2 and no more than 6.
Guard had the infantry platoon. A single troop choice that was a 5 man command squad and 2-6 10 man infantry squads. Then you started adding all the extra squads and units like HWTs and Sentinels.
Once you filled out the minimum requirements of the platoon you unlocked the Iron Fist squad of 10 infantry in a chimera.
So the two minimum troop requirements for guard were 35 infantry models and a chimera. The space marine player just buys a single troop box and splits it in half.
Then you have all the other outliers.
Craftworld Eldar, Terminators as troops, extra heavy Iron Warriors, extra troop Word Bearers, extra fast attack Night Lords... There were a lot of exceptions.
Didn't the Tyranids have a period of time where you could run all Warriors and Rippers? Like 15 boxes got you 5 squads of 5 warriors and 3 units of 5 rippers.
Once I played a casual game against a club member who fielded 3 Mortys 😂
...
...
He was always this kinda guy
Me in ninth edition with 2 brain cells: Mmmmmm Scarab Occults! *Buys ten boxes not knowing rule of three existed*
We all learn
Rule of 2 is unacceptable for any army that relies on non-battleline making up the meat of their army, notably the T'au. An Onslaught-sized army would get utterly strangled with only two crisis battlesuit units, with three already being a little restrictive when you want them equipped in a diversity of roles (eg, two battlesuit units with cyclic ion blasters and two with fusion blasters). You can keep adding exceptions upon exceptions until your face turns blue, it's just going to become a new headache to balance.
Going further, in order for the issues mentioned in the videos to be "fixed" for many factions, GW would have to generate dramatically more unit types to fill the gaps that multiples of the same unit used to, or, more likely, they don't do that at all and lesser-played factions rot.
I'd rather go back to proper force orgs than see a rule of 2 but then my army as a whole has 7 units to choose from so I am not exactly rolling in options and probably the only faction that struggles with the rule of 3 *shrugs*
Rule of 3 is good, and no force org, this is good right now. Though a singleton low point game could be interesting every now and then
the problem whit rule of 2 would largely be whit armies like Tyranids that have concept like Synaps you are killing the synaps web whit limiting the numbers to much but i fully understand where you are coming from and they could fix it by making Synaps 9 inc base i run my army normally as units of 1 and 2 its only when i go heavy in to theme that i go 3 squads of something
Be a gigachad like me and only run 1 box of any unit because variety is interesting
"Even custodes go above 5 per squad"
*YOU DID THIS*
There are so many battle reports I've stopped watching 2 minutes in because of unit spam. Frankly I never really thought about "highlander", but it sounds fun for crusade in particular.
I will never forget or forgive GW for starting a Harlequin army then stopping. I would assume in their eyes they don’t sell. Well why would they sell when the army has like only 6-8 units.
Rule of Two: *"Always two there are, no more, no less"*
One to embody the power, the other to crave it
“Always a master, and an apprentice, there are.”
“This is getting out of hand! Now there are two of them!”
@@B1-997 but which was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?
@@erbgorre The answer. Yes.
Sitting here crying over my 60 genestealers. They were troops! I was well within my limits...
I have the same problem, but all 2nd edition plastic ones. Gonna split them up across my 2nd and 3rd Tyranid armies and Genestealer cult. That way, I have a reason to buy more.
Facing 7 Hive Tyrants is just POV: You're being invaded by a Hive Fleet in lore.
I've always liked warmachine's solution to this, which that each unit has a stat for unit allocation which is just the maximum number of a unit you can take. I think it's a nice way to limit and adjust for specific models without accidently affecting other units, though that would by a lot more work for GW to go through and decide for each model.
I also commented this but for the squad based game Infinity. Very similar system that I’m really surprised hasn’t been implemented in 40k given they now restrict squad sizes.
We had that in Warhammer also. When I started playing, at the start of 3rd edition, some units had built-in restrictions. 0-1, or 1+, or 0-2. and that was on top of the Force organization chart.
Like Grabnar said, GW used this system too. But back than the game was not such a mess of broken shit flying around everywhere.
Yep and it stops them trying to stop spam by just increasing points. I would be happy if they limited the Sanguinary Guard to two maximum if they kept the points reasonable (hell make them cheap enough and I would be happy if all I could take is one full unit if them). They are ridiculous at the moment considering they don't have an invulnerable save and can't even have a Sanguinary Priest join them and it is because they were spammed in Arks of Omen so GW seemed to have over-reacted.
@@nathanthom8176 Well, people which cry about SG dont even know the real bad melee units in the game. Compared to them, SG is still powerful.
I think as you say the reason was originally rule of three was due to force org charts since those used to be up to 2 hq, 6 troops, 3 elites, 3 fast attack 3 heavy support, so as you said many older players may have had triples in their collections from that while more than three was a lot more rare (since that'd require multiple force org charts in play so it only happened in truly giant games)
I was about to mention this
Meanwhile old Guard players just collected everything in a giant bucket. "1 HQ and 2 troops? Sorry I can only do about 2000 points with that."
Given enough time, people will optimize the fun out of anything.
Everytime 🤣
rule of 2 is far safer for a collection in case something gets nerfed or toned down. Live by the skew, die by the skew
Exactly why I do only 1 of each unit.. minus some exceptions.
It is safer for FUTURE collection. Unless they increase the size of units, like was mentioned in the video, or use some other lever to balance it people who have been collecting for a while especially those that collect one or two armies would see good chunks of their collections become unusable. Just look at poor WE players that have been playing for a while. They lost massive chunks of their collections as "playable options" for their factions. Sure there is an argument that when they lost the first wave they could "just play CSM instead" but that isn't an option for the large chunk of FW models that are no longer playable. I would forsee a similar thing happening if GW went to rule of 2.
@@rmcdaniel2424 Bingo. For each of my armies I follow 1 of each, barring rare exceptions and battleline. Protects you from any big swings in the rules.
I dont run 3 vindicators in iron warriors because it’s good
As an old crusty player, my frustration with rule of 3 is not that its too restrictive, but that it is yet another rule that had to be reinvented after GW threw out everything that had be solved for decades. The Force Organization chart was good, it made an army feel coherent and thematic for casual players, and kept competitive players from bringing too much shit.
Pretty much this. Ya, it could use some tweaks from back in 2nd or 3rd ed, but it was solid for the compromise between casual and competitive.
i like it for eldar, it means i can actually take aspect warriors and my wraithlords, them all being elite and only having 3 elite slots sucked.
@@avlaenamnell6994 I would like to see the Horus Heresy expanded into a full edition of 40k. It's a pipe dream, but I think Eldar especially could have very cool reactions, and making special units into troops is like 75% of Rites of War.
@@avlaenamnell6994 I dont know third or second edition, but since 4th edition Aspects and Wraiths are vell divided between Troops, Elite, Fast Attack and Support
@@ruas4721 i mean in 9th most aspects were elite, and all wraiths were also elite ;p
I do wonder how harlequins would even make an army, they can’t reach 3k currently and they honestly only take roughly like a 465 point hit for characters, 1 voidweaver, 1 group of 4 Skyweavers, and 1 Starweaver becuase the character limit went down. Which would make it so they can barley get over.
I desperately hope they get a dual kit when the codex comes out that gives them more options.
harlequins didnt get an index, you are very optimistic if you think theyre getting a codex, at best theyre gonna have a section in the aeldari codex that lets you run some harlequins in an aeldari army
@@willtomgames I am aware. I’ll keep my copium stash though since I like them as an army.
@@Unknown-qj9sm Malal says hi.
they are not designed to be pure Harlequins in the first place
I want Harlequins to be my second army so badly, but that would require them to be an actual army....
So in earlier editions of Warhammer, they actually implimented some of the stuff you mentioned. These were the "1+" restriction, "0-1" restriction, and "Changing Battlefield Role".
So for example in Tau, Fire Warriors were 1+ in 3rd edition. This meant that no matter what your army composition is, you *must* field at least one unit of Fire Warriors. Since Fire Warriors were also troops, this fulfilled one of your two minimum troop choices.
On the other hand, Ethereals were 0-1, meaning you could only have up to one of them in your army. On top of this, special characters counted towards this (although at the time the only named Ethereal was Aun'Shi; Aun'Va didn't exist as a model yet). This was the Warhammer equivallent of singleton/highlander/No Nut November.
Then there was the "Change Battlefield Role" things. This was technically there in 3rd but formally introduced as a game mechanic in late 4th. Basically, through some special rules or characters, a certain unit would change battlefield roles. This often changed something to Troops to allow you to field them as compulsory choices, but also some changed slots to let you field more without being compulsory (like Carnifexes becoming Elites if they're under 115 points. See my other comment about Hive Fleet Moloch and why they're insane).
As for the problems with spam, this was what the original FoC was designed to do (and something still very few people realize) the Hard limit of 3 choices in each slot meant that spam is harder to do, while the "Troop tax" was intentionally meant to siphon your point costs. However it was a poor system for scaling up because you always had to buy exactly 2 troop choices, so bigger size games were more prone to imbalances. Ironically, this meant that at the time the game was balanced for 1500 points, rather than the 2k we are comfortable with now.
Fantasy, and by extension AoS, had a better mechanic where they divided units into broad categories and had minimum and maximum point limits for each one, which I really want 40k to impliment. They can kinda do this with Battleline (25% minimum on Battleline) and characters (no more than 50% of your points on Characters) but there's no way to fix it for anything else since they got rid of the Elites/HS/FA/Fliers/LoW designation. Me and my friend are going to attempt this to see how well it goes after we had a normal game of 10th edition and my Keeper of Secrets made a bitch of his entire blueberry army with her whip.
tyranid warriors in 3rd had theb ability to be taken as either HQ or elite, and you could custom evollve new nids which sometimes changed their place on their force organisation chart
for the most part I agree with rule of 3, but man I love the new biovore/pyrovore and i wanted to do a list of all the big ticks
If they are like current ones, you can run 18 of them.
@@PeteOfDarkness that is the question I think they gave a much bigger base so rules may change
Yall think rule of 3 is controversial? Man you're gonna hate my suggestion to make all epic heroes narrative play only.
I am just glad they have four types of infantry squads now, my IG army used to have 50 models in a single troop choice and I need the option back to field them.
I was so happy when i heard rumours of platoons retuning going into 10th and was crunched when the indexes came out and they where not there.
AoS has different rules, which limit spamming without the rule of 3 or 2, you have a minimum amount of battleline, and then you have a maximum number of Heroes, Behemots and Artillery, so only if you want to really spam the same unit, youll have to spam battleline, which is ok with most people
I really dislike the new fixed squad size, but I definitely feel what you said about a faction not feeling healthy despite a high win rate. I play Adeptus Mechanicus, and I really hated that time in 9th when AdMech was utterly broken because I didn't want to play 40 vanguards with the Irradiated Forge World rule and enriched rounds. That's unsurvivable for basically anything you shoot at, and it isn't fun, or flavorful. Not to mention, I started playing with Kill Team, because AdMech is damn expensive to collect and I don't really want to buy 4 boxes or scrounge from eBay to get 40 vanguards.
I think variable squad sizes/point per model will return with the codexes/end of year points changes. the tournament scene will cry havoc otherwise and we all know that's who james listens to the most
@@Eddy_Grimm not only the competitive scene, many normal players hate it too.
@@Eddy_Grimm I don't think PPM is coming back anytime soon. Unit size interacts with Leaders, Blast, transports, and Reserves too closely now. It's a lever to balance. For example, in a 2000pt game I cannot place a max sized Scarab Occult unit with a Sorc Terminator in Deep Strike. It's about 10 or so points over the 500pt reserves limit. If there was PMM then I'd drop a model and could, but it clearly seems to be pointed specifically to either take a min size with leader into DS or footslog/transport a max size.
@@KRdHaene the fact that you cant put the deep strike unit in deep strike shows how stupid it is. though i do believe that although strategic reserves are 25%, deep strike is general reserves which (i believe) is 50%. (page 43)
@@Eddy_Grimm I stand corrected on the percentage of points allowed in Reserves v. Strategic Reserves. I internalized the 25% since I have not looked at the Leviathan mission pack where the 50% rule for all Reserves is stated.
I still stand by the argument that fixed unit sizes are a major balance lever, both for how armies are constructed and the level of power each unit has. I don't believe it is going anywhere anytime soon.
As someone just getting into the hobby, I wish the force organization stuff wasn’t scrapped completely as it gave some idea of army structure. I was trying to find the guidelines for army building in 10th to plan my first army, and only having the rule of 3 leaves me having no idea where to even start. Pick an HQ and play what you like in a faction works well if you already know how to create a balanced force, but at this point I’m just kind of winging it and more structure would be helpful.
As someone who just getting into the hobby, I just wish GW would stop sucking Space Marines's D and give more attention to other xenos. Right now they exist either as plot convinience or Space Marine's punching bag to show players how buffed Space Marines are.
Speaking of the Nid stuff. I remember when you did the Faction's Knights and said Nids would've passed if given enough time. Indeed, the Emissary is a proper Nid Knight.
Nah its still way smaller then a Knight, the reference image shows it with a wraithlord meaning it's like a have tyrant with some platform boots.
@@jerryjezzaberry5009I dunno. They picked smaller stuff for other factions too.
Remember it had to be big enough and have that high Timmy factor. I think the Emissary passes quite well.
@DominatorLegend yeah I think it's a *big* model but not Knight sized the proportions don't work out for it to be that large or comparable.
I'm guessing it's closer to the avatar of khaine of maybe great unclean one rather then an actual knight
@@jerryjezzaberry5009 Well, the GUO was used as the Knight equivalent for Demons.
@DominatorLegend yeah in statline but actual size ? Nah it's a rotund model but nowhere near as impressive as a Knight.
The only chaos deamons who get close to the scale and wow factor of the Knight are the Lord of change and bloodthirster.
I miss the old 3rd Ed Force Org. No nonsense:
1 HQ & 2 Troops minimum.
Max of 2 HQ, 3 Elite, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support, 6 Troops.
Same for every standard army.
If a unit was unique or powerful, it would have its own limit of 0-1, 0-2, etc.
If you had a specific chapter, hive fleet, craftworld, etc. then it usually gave you a trade-off, so Biel-Tan had all your Aspect Warriors becoming troops but pretty much everything else became an elite choice.
Extremely simple to grok.
I was wondering if there was someone here who remembered that, or if I had simply imagined that or misunderstood the force org back in 3rd. Imagine a petulant 14 year old (me) deciding to take 3 looted basilisks for an ork army with indirect fire…
I remember a few months ago seeing this Beastmen (Beasts of Chaos) army list that was pretty much, "Oops, all Chaos Spawn!" Like, except for one or two characters, it was all units of Chaos Spawn. But the player had actually individually named the Chaos Spawn with whimsical names, it was great!
That sounds like a based as hell list wow.
On the topic of AOS, we don’t have as much of a spam problem because Battleline does the job, plus we’re only allowed to “reinforce” a unit beyond minimum 4 times. So the only way to, say, spam Stegadons in Seraphon is to take the sub faction that makes them battleline, and then GW can balance around that, plus you don’t get a ton else in that subfaction. Much cleaner IMO but it comes with the battleline tax that some people don’t like because then they have to run generic troops
on top of that alot of armies what to get one drops to have a choice on who goes first or second which also limits how the army is made
@@shuwan4games Good point, I forgot about how much of a success Core Battalions are. 40K 9th detachments but you don’t have to take them unless you want their specific bonuses. It’s the exact right way to do that imo.
Here's my big brain idea: You know those nice, once page detachment rules that outline the fighting style of your particular force? Put a force org chart on them. They've already suggested a similar thing with changing battleline on those cards, why not go all the way?
Could be cool for armies having unique keyword restrictions like the one commander per detachment thing but instead be "five dreadnought keyword units per army" something like that.
They've already experimented with that with Lucius the Eternal in CSM, which turns Noise Marines into Battleline so you can just. Bring six squads of Noise Marines
@@RagnellAvalon Turning the battlefield into a Skrillex concert.
This must be something that changes drastically based on your playgroup lol. 3 has always felt about right to me, in that I've never really had a unit that I would even want more than 3 of, but I have played other games more competitively and could see how a sweaty player could break things if they wanted to. Still, I would be very sad if they went down to 2.
5:42 Actual old nerds like me will know you were limited to 2 HQ choices anyway under the old force org chart 2 HQ 3 Elites, 6 Troops, 3 Fast Attack, 3 Heavy Support
You two are a cute couple.
It perfectly encapsulates my feelings as an AoS player about Slant lists. Playing against an army that’s just nothing but one unit just makes me bored. It feels like there’s not much tactics but instead I’m just beaten by stat sticks.
as someone who plays yugioh both players having fun seems kinda iffy ngl.
Failure? Your podcasts are great, man!
I'm not a competitive player, but You play to WIN. If it's broken, that's GW's fault, not the players. You can't fault the players for trying to WIN A GAME, that's the whole point.