Yes I did and that's why the 15cm change has been suggested.


And some armies have a choice of essentially no leaders, and have many 2+ init formations, what's your point?  

You said LatD has "very few leaders" and I showed that the LatD has options to take more than most armies, but you have to make tough choices to do so!  Why is that a bad thing?  If you don't take a Demagogue, you still get 2d3 Daemons to help... or you could spend points on other upgrades, etc.

It's all about choices.

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It's all about choices? "Sorry, if you wanted an army that wasn't about comedy failure, you could've picked Air Marines." - that's about the limit of the choice here if LatD keeps 30cm/All Factions. Unfortunately, opinion seems to be that by playing LatD we've "chosen" to have more comedy failure than the orks. But it builds character, and it's fluffy out of both ends - that is if you're over 40 and think Realms of Chaos is one end and the 40k 2nd ed. Chaos Codex is t'other.

Of course, I could always choose to only use 1/4 of the army list! Authentic 40k gameplay at its finest!

How is a 2+ Init a comedy of failure?

The Army Champion has already indicated you should test the 15cm range, which should easily let you make your 2+ rolls, so why are people still complaining about the 30cm range?

Since the majority of the list can be used Undivided, I fail to see where your "use 1/4 of the list" comes in at all, other than as unnecessary hyperbole that does nothing to help development.

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You've said it yourself, "...playing the odds like that is *fun*, especially when a "plan comes together"."

That's comedy failure to me. The whole "If we win we win, if we lose, we still win 'cause it was hilarious rolling "3"s and still failing" sort of game design that went out of style when Andy Chambers packed up his bong and moved to California.

Sure, 15cm is better than 30cm. Four factions hating four factions is worse. So much see-sawing on this rule, when overall, the Faction rule has just been a bad rule from the start.

There has got to be a better way to represent the fractiousness of Chaos armies at the scale of Epic Armageddon. Factions is not it. I imagine we're stuck with it, since the LatD list (a fan list at the start, IIRC) has the semi-legitimacy of being one of the last things to escape the event horizon of the Specialist Games collapse.

I know it's a bit out of the box, but how about something like, "if a formation has any lesser Daemons of their faction, it has no hated enemy. If a Greater Daemon is on the battlefield, all formations of that Chaos God have no hated enemy.".

I know it's not accurate, and can probably be worded better, but it's to represent the squabblers being brought back on-topic by the servants of their God. And a Greater Daemon being enough for the whole army to have better things on their mind than petty squabbles.

It should correct the issue where Black Legion don't have the reliance on factions but LatD do, and where LatD invest more in Daemons than BL do.

Wow, that's a pretty run-on argument. I'm sure it could be made more eloquent. But I think the idea may be sound.

Morgan Vening

The problem with 4+ activations, or indeed 3+ activations, is that it kills LatD as an assault army.

A Coven kitted for assault easily hits 500+ points with summoned daemons, you´ll have to wait until turn 2 if all goes well or possibly to turn 3 until it is in striking range. These formations will strike exactly once, they either win that assault or will be too weak due to losses or out of position otherwise. Since daemons are summoned before activating you might end up with a whole bunch of shields when you that 4+ activation fails.

3+ (BMs are guaranteed, no coven survives turn 1 without them!) was enough to change my style from assault horde to traitor PDF, I learned that much from playing IG. You will fail activations constantly, with expensive formations quite useless at shooting, so better prepare for that, leave out the Demagogues, Pacts, Icon Bearers, Altars and LDs and go for added Leman Russes, Hydras and artillery.

At least they do something on the Hold that way.

Without "Factions", it was a matter of preference / army style, now I would feel forced to go mono-faction / undivided. LatD is difficult enough to play without another monkey wrench.

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And if there isn't a hated formation within 15cm it's a 2+ activation. 3+ with Blast markers... just like many other armies; why is this thought of as some unbearable hardship for the Cultists?

I never said beating the odds was "funny", I said it was "fun"; I don't see the cultist failing activations as "Duh... what do we do now boss?", but of them being out of control and insane.  The LatD represent a mob of frothing madmen bent on destroying the world for their vile masters, the thought that they'd "play nice" with the followers of other Powers at all time just seems ridiculous to me... "Okay blood Warriors of Khorne, go help those Tzeentchian wizards, and you Slaaneshi bladedancers, go work with those Nurgle bilebelchers... YES SIR!", now *that* is ridiculous comedy.

If you want *reliability* in your Cultist, then mono-Faction *is* the way to go, but if you want the power that comes from *diversity*, there's a cost to pay.  I do not see that as a bad thing.

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Why does the LatD not have access to Baneblades?

Just curious, that's all  

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My point is that they are tough to use in assaults already and better played with shooty over daemons, if that´s where the list is going, well, I have been doing so for quite some time and would probably play variant if it didn´t feel like optimizing too much and opponents might comment...

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I agree with you Irondeath! I think the all-hated Factions is a dreadful idea in background terms and in game terms, which unfairly screws over a particular subset of players (who choose to go multi-power with allied non diametrically opposed powers - a perfectly valid option in the background and past rules and lists of all systems) and that there are other better ways to balance the list. Even if it is reduced to 15cm it is going to have a big negative effect and be very annoying and so far lots of the LaTD players have been opposed to this all-hated rule: myself, Hena, Fredmans, Irisado, Man of Kent, Irondeath - as have a number of others on the forum who may or may not play the army; Marconz, Dangersaurus and Erik M.

I'll come back and discuss and critique the issue more at length sometime later this week anyway, sleepytime is overdue...

Can we test it at 15cm before dismissing it please. Hopefully all the rule at 15cm will do is hinder close co-operation between units of different factions. I can't see it being difficult to seperate your factions in a normal situation and even common, and powerful, combos which are used at the moment - such as slaanesh WEs assaulting supported by tzeentch covens, would just need more careful placement and thought.

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NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

1) Coven 1 Daemon Prince + 12 cultists + 2 chimeras + 5 land transports + hydra + Pact 440 pts
2) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + 6 land transports + hydra + Pact 335 pts
3) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + 6 land transports + hydra + Pact 335 pts
4) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + 6 land transporters + hydra 310 pts
5) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + hydra 250 pts
6) Subjucator 225 pts
7) Subjucator 225 pts
Questor 275 pts
9) Questor 275 pts
10)Rough Riders 150 pts
Daemon pool 9 lesser daemons 180 pts

This army won 2 tournaments without losing a game and is certainly not a shooting army IIRC it was based around assaults using the covens/WEs supporting each other.

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Just a few ramblings from me about why I think the multi faction lists are not as good as the mono faction lists, with or without the faction rules (in any form).

In the last few years when I've played LandD I've found I prefer the mono lists to the multi faction ones (and have much better results).

When playing with mono factions I've found that I play my normal game and each individual formation has it's intended roll but when I'm playing multi faction lists I tend to try to make the factions work together and compliment each other.

This usually ends up with formations in a mono faction list selecting individual targets and sometimes threatening multiple formations each. The opponent can only stop a couple of my planned activations at a time so I usually get to do what I intended to do with half of my army.

In a multi faction list I've found I try to gang up on enemy formations, using Tzeentch support covens along with slaaneshi assault formations. This though usually means my formations are only threatening a couple of enemy formations a turn and the opponent finds it easy to counter these threats leaving my forces with no good targets.Even when I do get to d what I want I'm only engaging a single enemy formation and I'm not hurting my opponents focres enough.

Along with this in mono lists I find I'll attack 2 separate enemy formations (per my part of the turn) with no need to have to retain if I don't want to. Although with multi faction lists I try to set up assaults on only 1 enemy formation (per my part of the turn) using Tzeenctch support covens then retain with (usually) a Slaanesh one. you find you have to retain or the enemy will simply maneuver away  so more chances of failed activations.

So in summary I find for me,
Mono lists tend to give me a better gaming experience and winning chance because,

they are capable of threatening more of the enemy per turn.
the enemy cannot counter all my threats.
I don't have to retain to be effective.
I can reduce more effectively my opponents formations/ activations.
I'm more focused on objectives than setting up combined assaults etc.

Multi faction lists, although you have more varied toys to play with, reduce my winning chance because,

They threaten less of the opponents forces per turn.
the enemy has a better chance of countering my threats.
I have to retain to be effective (again more chances to fail an activation).
I cannot reduce my opponents formations /activations as effectively (usually trying to get 2 of my formations to destroy just 1 of my opponents).
I find I'm concentrating more on setting up deadly combined actions than focusing on the objectives.
Even when not using the -1 for factions theres going to be a lot of failed activations due to needing 3+ or 4+ (with BM's usually) for retaining which is necessary for these lists to work.

So whichever faction rule ends up being used I will still find the mono list much better than a multi faction one to use.