I am not convinced that the factions rule change is a good change by any of the reasons put forth so far. As I see it, LatD is affected by a needed change for factions in the BL list. LatD seems to be changed to keep the faction rule identical in both lists.

As for background, I think different army lists should portray different alliances or enmities. I like the old background far more than the new, but taste is individual and periodical.

Now, besides background, I have three major issues concerning all-out-hatred.

1) It is very difficult to factor the initiative effects in terms of points, because mono-God/undivided lists suffer no initiative effects and would in such case get a free discount.

2) LatD reminds me of Tyranids in that they are no good at holding. With some notable exceptions, the entire army shoots 30 cm. Orks are good at doubling. Tyranids at engagements. These modifiers are there for a reason. The armies would otherwise be unplayable.

3) There are two ways of dealing with these problems. Either you go mono-God or you throw in undivided covens to mitigate the faction effects. My concern is that none of these options match the kind of army I would like to field, and the list was never intended to be used as such. We see the appearance of mono-God Chaos lists on this forum, because a mono-God list does a better job of representing a mono-God army than a generalist one could ever hope to do. Likewise, if I wanted to spend a portion of my points on undivided Chaos troops, I would much rather look into Red Corsairs or Vraks Traitors, because they have more flavour. In short, the list was intended to use two or three factions, hence the factions penalty rule. The fact that many players never used three factions is another story. But if a change from two-God to one-God is what is wanted, I almost consider the list itself pointless.

/Fredmans

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[quote="Evil and Chaos,Feb. 08 2010, 13:45 "][/quote]


I'm not convinced of the ease of that, especially given it's always a bit of a risk

as it stands, to retain the initiative with LatD.



It requires a player to be too careful in my view, and this is not a reason to penalise, and that's all this rule is, a penalty, dual God players.



I'm sorry, but 15cms does not promote list building in any style.  All it does is encourage mono-God armies at the expense of dual God armies, which unfairly penalises dual God players, penalises players with older model collections (who I suspect make up the majority of the LatD players, due to most models being out of production), and is likely to lead to mono God armies becoming more and more common, so I cannot agree that this is any way a necessary or positive step.



No, all you achieve is to discourage a wider variety of army selection, and make unnecessary complications which do not act a tactical dimension to the game, which is in any way a challenge, rather it is nothing but a tool which is going to frustrate LatD players.



I have no intention to criticise anyone, I apologise if that's the way you took my point.  I do not come on forums for that, and I'm sorry if that's the way the message came across.

I hope you know that I hold you in very high regard, and I have said so before, it's just on this particular issue I am very surprised by your position, which is why I am disagreeing with so strongly.

I am, however, against this rule more than any other I have ever seen, and I will continue to argue very strongly against it in all its guises, and it does feel as though that it is arbitary, as nobody has yet explained to me why it is necessary from the point of view of making LatD more balanced, and surely that's the whole point of any rule change?



So, we should dismiss the old background?  No, I'm sorry I do not agree with that.  As far as I am concerned, the original is just as valid, if not more so, than any current Chaos background, most of which is poorly written, and ill thought out in my view.



No, it does more than this in my view.  It discourages the use of particular factions being used together, such as mixing Slaanesh Titans with the Lord of Battles and Khorne Daemon Engines, which, on paper, looks rather nasty to me, so I think the rule is serving a purpose as it stands, and I get the impression that the original list was designed taking this into account.



No, it is restricting how closely certain powerful combinations can interact with each other as I have described above, making it an effective rule in my view.



In my view, it is having the effect that it ought to have (see above), so again I disagree with you I'm afraid.

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None in recent years, but before hand plenty.

15cm would allow them to lend lend close support, and I think this should not be allowed.

Have you missed the whole discussion? 15cm and 30cm for support is not the question. It is the activation that is in question.

The answer makes no sense.

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frogbear: actually it does make sense. With a 30cm faction limit then units supporting an engagement will almost always find themselves in "faction" range. With a 15cm faction range it'd be possible to support without getting close enough to take the penalty.

It's this that Blish is against the 15cm rule for; it allows formations to support fire while still being far enough away to not take an activation penalty.



I don't know whether I agree it's a problem, but it is a valid point.

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I am yet to see examples of multi 'God' lists that are deemed as too powerful.

I guess this request is being ignored as there is no example of them?

The rule helpsd mono-daemon lists, that so far, only one has been placed forward, and even that one was because people did not know how to combat it.

So, the request stands, where are these examples that makes the current LatD list 'broken'?

As for the support ranges, I daresay that any adjustment to a list that is not played by a player that diadvantages the list for no other reason than 'because' is not a relevant proposal to this discussion. As has been said, there appear to be opinions from people that have no interest in this list. How can an opinion be stated when not compared or played sufficiently. At least the biggest voices are from the people that play the list. At a point where I see some 'broken' examples of multi-daemonic lists for LatD, then I do not see how the change is warranted.

Just my view  

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As I mentioned, popcorn coverns are very nasty.

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10 covens + 10 sentinels = 20 activations

15 covens = 15 activations

Where does the multi-factions come into play?    

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Here is another take on it.

Why don't the Orks have animosity rules? Is it not the same thing? Is it really necessary in Epic?

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I think the biggest issue is the large impact that failure has, for LatD. It's an engage heavy army, and failure eliminates that aspect completely, where a shooting army isn't as heavily affected.

Black Legion isn't really affected by this due to the nature of the build, but LatD is. I'll reiterate what others have said, how does the faction rule hinder a power-build LatD list? Some examples of overpowered multi-faction lists would be good.

But the biggest problem seems to be the cost of failure for the activation. So the penalty is too harsh IMO, to the point where force builds themselves are compromised.

Has any consideration been given to increasing the scope, but decreasing the effect, of the Faction Rule?

Just an example,
Factions : Whenever a formation fails an activation within 30cm of a 'hated' enemy, it receives a Blast Marker in addition to the one gained from failing an Initiative Test. Whenever a formation rallies or regroups, and is within 30cm of a 'hated' enemy, it loses one less BM than it would normally. A 'hated' enemy is defined as any faction other than your own, or Chaos Undivided. Chaos Undivided have no 'hated' enemies.

Morgan Vening

I think "multi-faction balance" is a red herring.  There's no playtest evidence showing it and I really don't recall that raw power was really a driving force in development.  IMHO, factions are for old-school chaos flavor.  If they have little mechanical impact, so what?

Personally, I don't think anything needs to be done to the rule.

What is the goal of changing it, anyway?  To see more multi-factions lists?  Why is that desirable?  It won't really change anything in play.  The core formations are still going to be covens and traitor IG.

The 15cm version won't change much.  Anyone who reasonably thinks the rule might have any effect will just go with mono-lists like always.  People who don't want the hassle of keeping up with it (like me) will do likewise.  Same-same.  The only thing it might change will be army list design for people who think 15cm is too short a distance to ever have to worry about it.  You might see a small increase in the variety of daemon engines within a single army... maybe... sometimes.

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Neal

I never said it did.

I'm on your side here, at least when it comes to multi-god lists not being the problem.

I personally would like to see the factions rule disappear entirely and then see the list properly fixed. The problems with the list are not due multi-god issues, they're due to strutural and pricing abnormalities.

The factions rule is a curtain it front of the real cracks in the wall.

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This is precisely why I like it.

Currently, I just won't mix Factions within the "hated pairs", because the 30cm range of effect is too detrimental.

With the updated rule, I'd actually be interested in using three Factions (plus Undivided) in a single Cultist army, something I probably never do with the old rules as, at 15cm, I can manage things more easily, but still have to watch out.

Instead of all the chatter, why don't people try playtesting at the 15cm range a bit more?  I've got at least one game with LatD scheduled for Friday, and it has three god Factions in it, so we'll see how it goes.

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Pretty much what frogbear posted. Basic coverns are cheap and spammable and so can lead to a decent activation count and a ridiculous number of models on the board. That's always been my impression of the most obvious problem with the list. Unlike most popcorn lists it won't suffer from small, useless formations.

Beyond that I don't know, I'm no expert on the list, but all evidence points to a significantly above average win-record.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread