Haemonculus Coven Formations; what happened?

So, I've been away for clearly a lot of years only to come back and find out that formations are apparently a think of the past?

I purposefully both purchased and painted my units according to these following formations:

Grotesqueries

which consists of Urien Rakarth or 1 Haemonculus and 2 units of Grotesques. The detachment has the Freakish Spectacle rule, as well as the Latest Experiments rule, which allows the grotesques to roll on a table at the same time Warlord Traits are determined. Based on the roll, the grotesques will get +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, Fleet, Shred, Rage, or Feel No Pain (4+) for the entirety of the game.

Scarlet Epicureans

which is a Haemonculus, a Cronos, and 2 units of Wracks. The Formation has the Freakish Spectacle rule. Additionally, Wracks from the formation within 12″ of the Haemonculus gain Precision Strikes, and always treat the turn as being 1 later for the Power From Pain table.


Corpsethief Claw

which is a single unit of 5 Talos, which gain the Scout Special Rule in addition to the Freakish Spectacle rule. Additionally, this unit scores a victory point for each enemy non-vehicle unit destroyed in close combat. This is in addition to any mission specific victory points for destroying a unit.

-------

There are more formations and all have their own interesting rules, but this is all gone then? Anybody any idea why? Was it too powerful? Or is it just that the new Drukhari rulebook was perhapsed too hastily put together?

-------

I'm aware that 9th edition isn't out yet, but are the rules for these formations too "old" to use in modern games? Would these turn the tide too much into my favor? I'd rather have a good game than an easy game.

Sadly, the whole formation concept have been abandonned. I still miss my beloved Dark Artisan.

Formations was 7th version of Psychic Awakening. It was only for 7th edition.

For the most part older rules do transfer over to newer editions (like 8th to 9th) but every now and then they do not. All 7th rules become obsolete when 8th came out b.c of how drastically different the game was.

dumpeal wrote:

Sadly, the whole formation concept have been abandonned. I still miss my beloved Dark Artisan.

5 man unit of Talos gaining VP's was AMAZING lol

amishprn86 wrote:

Formations was 7th version of Psychic Awakening. It was only for 7th edition.

For the most part older rules do transfer over to newer editions (like 8th to 9th) but every now and then they do not. All 7th rules become obsolete when 8th came out b.c of how drastically different the game was.

dumpeal wrote:

Sadly, the whole formation concept have been abandonned. I still miss my beloved Dark Artisan.

5 man unit of Talos gaining VP's was AMAZING lol

Looking at most rules for those formations; I can't say I understand how this would be considered drastically different to be completely honest. It doesn't give any model extremely OP rules. I feel like most are just fluffy buffs that makes playing an all coven army just the more fun.

I guess it comes down to me convincing my opponent if must and otherwise, oh well, i`ll forget about it.

And yes, popping up out of nowhere with 5 Talosi was pretty diabolical

Don't worry. in 9th edition you still can! Just pay the CP to put them in reserve and presto, Talos bomb again!

Formations were dropped along with a few other 7th concepts because they were a major part of the power creep which was adversly affecting the game. Too many formations were available (mainly for other factions like Space Marines, and yoo many had been given ridiculous abilities that weree breaking the game.
So the whole thing was dropped.
Some of the old formations are still possible using the modern detachments, though not all.

GW has a hard enough time costing units correctly in terms of points. Free benefits for the opportunity cost of having required units is much, much harder to balance (points costs have to be considered and decided upon based off BOTH the unit's power in a formation and not in one) and is a door GW never should have opened.

8th decided to take away formations and add stratagems to give you effects similar to what formations did. Except this was a resource management system that's much easier balance.

sekac wrote:

GW has a hard enough time costing units correctly in terms of points. Free benefits for the opportunity cost of having required units is much, much harder to balance (points costs have to be considered and decided upon based off BOTH the unit's power in a formation and not in one) and is a door GW never should have opened.

Especially as with some Space Marine formation that came along later, which gave whole free units. Such as the Dewmi-Company and its free Rhinos, Razorbacks and Drop Pods.

Squidmaster wrote:

sekac wrote:

GW has a hard enough time costing units correctly in terms of points. Free benefits for the opportunity cost of having required units is much, much harder to balance (points costs have to be considered and decided upon based off BOTH the unit's power in a formation and not in one) and is a door GW never should have opened.

Especially as with some Space Marine formation that came along later, which gave whole free units. Such as the Dewmi-Company and its free Rhinos, Razorbacks and Drop Pods.

Exactly. How do you a price those transports correctly when they're sometimes free? You can't, so the only balance you can achieve is by inflating the costs of the required units to unlock the free transports. But then they're overcosted if you're not doing the formation so you're kinda forced into the formation either way.

It's an absolute game balance nightmare.

The stratagem system is a much better approximation for what a lot of formations did. And luckily there aren't any stratagems to give you hundreds of free points worth of stuff.

omkara wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

Formations was 7th version of Psychic Awakening. It was only for 7th edition.

For the most part older rules do transfer over to newer editions (like 8th to 9th) but every now and then they do not. All 7th rules become obsolete when 8th came out b.c of how drastically different the game was.

dumpeal wrote:

Sadly, the whole formation concept have been abandonned. I still miss my beloved Dark Artisan.

5 man unit of Talos gaining VP's was AMAZING lol

Looking at most rules for those formations; I can't say I understand how this would be considered drastically different to be completely honest. It doesn't give any model extremely OP rules. I feel like most are just fluffy buffs that makes playing an all coven army just the more fun.

I guess it comes down to me convincing my opponent if must and otherwise, oh well, i`ll forget about it.

And yes, popping up out of nowhere with 5 Talosi was pretty diabolical

Unit of 3++ re-rolling saves with a 5+++ with a Smash captain in that unit, combine with you can only hit them on a 6 at all times with 20 Plasma shots.

Or a full 2k point army that can have a free transport for every infantry unit.

Crap like that is why, DE formations ere D tier compare to Necrons, SM, Admech, Tau, and CWE>.