I know EA army lists are made to suit army themes, and I think that's great, but do people think it would too unbalancing to have a less restricted faction list that allowed a lot of army tailoring?

I'm mainly thinking about adding personalisation to smaller-scale games, eg. 1500pts. These expanded lists would be stepping stones from the loose and highly-detailed Warhammer 40k to the more strict and generalised Epic Armageddon, suited to specialised games and campaigns and not intended in any way to compete with the current lists.

For example- Steel Legion can have Tank Companies, and Tank Squadrons, but would it be a problem if they also had access to Tank Platoons like in the Minervan list?
Steel Legion tanks are pretty restricted in their types- would it be too game-changing to allow them access to the kind of variety Minervans can have?
Similarly, would it be too powerful to allow Eldar Revenants access to Sonic Lances (though I understand Sonic Lances still need some work)?

What about if Steel Legion could take Gorgons and an appropriate optional upgrade in infantry size to suit having Gorgons? (Of course they wouldn't really be 'Steel Legion' anymore, I use that name simply to refer to what I consider the most generic Guard army list)

Would it break the game and/or add enough to the game to add options currently not present in any list? For example, Forgeworld Waveserpents have a lot of weapon variants, but in the rules all Waveserpents only have twin Shuriken Cannons.
Many of these weapon options would have to be tweaked- for example, twin Scatter Lasers would be much better than twin Shuriken Cannons, so to have both as viable options you'd need to change the stats in odd ways (or charge points, though I'd rather avoid that). Players could then choose to make a specialised unit (eg. a Falcon unit all with Pulse Lasers and Bright Lances) or a more adaptable unit (eg. either a mix of Falcon secondary weaponry, or secondary weaponry that is both AT and AP, or secondary weaponry that is purely AP and relying on the Pulse Laser for AT).

Are these ideas completely mad, or not worth it, or could it be a worthwhile thing to work on for specific, small-scale games?

In my opinion, it those "more flexible" list are for scenarios and so on shouldn't a problem. But I am quite sure that the resulting armies could be unbalanced (again, perfect for a scenario if both players agree).

Regards!

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Gwydion

The more that's added, the more testing is needed, the more likely an "ultimate combo" is possible, the more difficult the list will be to balance.

Game breaking? With regards to the epic tournament game rules, yes. With regards to what you're hoping to do with them, not as much.

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Would they actually be unbalanced though, and why?
What makes it balanced for Minervans to mix Demolishers amongst there Russ Tank Companies, but broken for Steel Legion? For the most part the units in each list are very similar.

I guess the underlying question here is: Why are army lists based mainly around a theme, rather than rules (so far as I can tell)? Is the theme and the restrictions imposed by it actually critical to balancing the factions?

I typed the above before seeing Dave's comment.

I understand that more options make games harder to balance- much harder- but there's already no shortage of options, they've simply been divided in ways that make them more testable, and more palatable to the competitive gamer, but often the same unit in different lists will have the same points value- which to me points at a fairly solid points value for everything in any list (though I'm sure some abuse would be possible).

The part in parentheses hit the nail on the head. Every option added leads to more potential for abuse. I'll also add that it's not just about the point cost of the unit but formations as a whole. I'd much rather play a tank platoon than a company as I'll get more activations. Add those into the SL list and all of a sudden 14+ formation armies become a solid option. Then my SM opponent who needs the higher number of activations to be competitive is left with a much more difficult game.

On your underlying question, because that's been a design concept since the beginning. Lists are defined by their play style and what's not in them just as much as by what is in them. The limited scope of a list is critical to balancing it in my opinion.

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I agrre with Dave, IMO you can not compare units/formations in an isolates enviroment...they have to be assessed inside an army.

Regards

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Gwydion

I definitely agree, which is why I'd never push for this idea to be anything mainstream. I do find it interesting though that many point values are pretty stable regardless of list. There are some notable exceptions- like Storm Ravens vs Wave Serpents (both 50pts, both equally fast and tough, but Storm Ravens are far more powerful), though that's (presumably) justified by them replacing Rhinos (reducing an otherwise high points value).

I think it'll be fun being able to play 40k raids, scaling them up to Epic games, but with a mid-zone where Epic rules are used (the better game) while retaining the individuality of 40k (the enemy can try and take out a model familiar from the raid). It's unfortunate that it'll probably be a long time before I can try and put this idea into practice.

As an intermediate solution, for your scenario games, why not just allow lists of the same 'faction' to ally with each other? Create two or more valid armies (perhaps with some additional restrictions, like having only one Supreme Commander) and play them as a single force - you can have your Minervan tank platoons alongside your Steel Legion tank companies and your Death Korps infantry mounted in Gorgons. (You'll still struggle to fit all that in a 1500-point list, though.)

It would mean no additional list creation was required, saving a ton of work and potentially problematic decisions on points costs or formation structures. It's in keeping with 40K's current army-building philosophy, so it should make intuitive sense to your players. It won't be balanced, but neither will a gigantic combined list - within the group, you should be able to rely on the social contract to prevent or curtail abuse.

The difficulty of fitting everything into legal joint-force lists is the issue with that route.
I also like the idea of having options from 40k not available at all in Epic, like some weapon variations- I know in 40k some squads and vehicles build up a reputation from game to game, to the point where people can have great fun forgetting the actual victory conditions and just trying to kill 'that damned falcon with the bright lance', or similar. I'd like to be able to have that falcon with bright lance, or similar unit, as a recognisable and semi-meaningful variation in an Epic army for opponents to hunt down. People can then come to hate that whole Falcon unit, and the whole Falcon unit will then be around in proper games of Epic, giving a clear continuation of stories and antagonism as games progress in size.

There have been experiments with unit variants (Leman Russ and Land Raider being more obvious examples), but these tend not to be retrofitted into existing lists, mainly because the tweaks are usually minor and the effort required for testing dilutes other more important developments.

This is not saying that you cannot pursue these thoughts separately, rather that they should form a scenario for forces under different circumstances:- Planet Defence; assaults into a particular sector; or even developments to combat a particular race etc.

Well, yeah... that's the 'issue' that stops a hyper-flexible combined force from picking all the best options at the cheapest price and roflstomping opponents. What kind of combined forces were you hoping to have at 1500 points?


Sounds like a great idea. Just house-rule some new weapon options within your group and away you go. The tournament lists are kept pretty abstract due to scale, but there's no reason you can't add minor variations for your campaign.

Yeah don't ovethink it. You want hunterkillers on your vindicators? Talk with your opponent and settle in a price or what you're going to let them have in return. Want to use Redeemers in place of phobos? Go for it. I don't think you need to jump through all the hoops to design some "list" to accomplish that, especially at low points.

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Fair point, making a list is probably unnecessary, though I will need to consider stats for things- eg. Wave Serpents with twin-linked shuriken cannons (as they are normally) have 1 30cm AP4+ shot. Going by standard profiles, twin-linked scatter lasers would be better, with no draw back. So some minor tweaking should be done.


The point is to be able to replicate as much of a player's 40k models as accurately as possible in Epic. It's unlikely that killer-combinations will happen.

As an example, I have a Guard playing friend with many tanks- but owning 9 Standard Russes and a Vanquisher is pretty extreme. Being able to cobble together all of his Russ variants into a total of 10 (or even just 6) tanks is much more achievable. That suits the Minervans. He also then has stacks on infantry- roughly enough for an Infantry Platoon, but not enough Chimeras to make them mounted- so that's a standard Steel Legion Infantry Platoon.
Models don't even need to hit the field in 40k- for example, if I had a 40k scale Revenant to go with my Eldar I would never play it at 40k scale (at least not with standard GW rules), but I'd love it as a display piece. It'd be great to be able to field a lone Revenant in Epic, knowing that it is that favourite display model of mine seeing the field at a more suitable scale. Lone Revenants are only found in the Eldar Knightworld list though, while the rest of my army is much more Biel-Tan flavoured.

The goal is simply to make small-scale Epic armies that are as similar to 40k armies as possible, toning down the level of abstraction so that players don't disengage from their favourite tanks or squads. The tales of those lone tanks or squads will then get woven together in platoons and their stories expanded by the mini-epic games, until proper Epic games are played and the emotional investment remains regardless of weird abstraction.