Is it ever worth just going unbound?

Is it ever viable to just go unbound? Its a huge risk for sure not being able to claim objectives but could it ever really work? Just trying to table your opponent or force them off objectives? I'm not so sure myself. What are your thoughts on it?

I would go unbound; however, that's not saying that I would do well. Unbound grants you so much freedom that it turns into more of a challenge to keep yourself in line. Yes you can spam a ton of whatever unit you want; however, that doesn't mean it's good and will win.

Personally, unbound is more challenging to construct a good list than just thinking of the mass spam that can come from it.

If it was more freely available, I would probably do it; however, I would still base the army off of a traditional force org. The unbound-ness of the list would simply adding the odd 4th elite or heavy without requiring the HQ/Troop overhead.

If i wanted to run a full spam army, that would be more "fun" games.

My issue with unbound is not our army but what i'm fighting in my opinion if we all started going unbound it defeats the purpose of the rules for detachments existing, i know bound and unbound are listed in the rules, but it keeps me warm at night knowing that there are restrictions to someone spamming there best unit.

Grimcrimm wrote:

it keeps me warm at night knowing that there are restrictions to someone spamming there best unit.

Not just their best unit but all best units from any source. The whole idea of Unbound really just puts me in mind of a bunch of 6 year olds playing with action figures and trying to decide if Darth Vader would be able to beat Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Not my idea of a wargame.

Taking the extreme cases is the knee jerk idea; however, it doesn't work well. I played a guy that tried to play with units from 6 different armies and lost massive in addition to running into Come the Apoc and Desparate Ally handicaps. I'm not saying it CAN'T be done; however, with the new ally rules for 7th, a lot of the inter-army synergies are no longer there like they were in 6th. And the synergies that are there can still be done in a battle-forged game for the most part due to multi-CAD and formations. Nothing is preventing me from taking a Firebase Cadre Tau formation with my Orks for example.

The first unbound games I took had people trying to play with literally everything under the sun and seeing them lose badly. Others would spam a ton and then lose to the mission in most cases. Now adays, my unbound games have been more focused on just allowing a force org of your own making instead of being restricted.

if i did it, it would be purely thematic (like the dreadnought battle from third war for armageddon for example)

I will eventually try it, but only just for kicks and only with certain, fluffy (and cohesive) army ideas that I want to have a go at, such as an all-flying 'Nid list. And I would be perfectly happy to play someone else fielding a similar army, but I am not interested in the OP or the spam lists, not my idea of a fun game at all.

Count Adhemar wrote:

The whole idea of Unbound really just puts me in mind of a bunch of 6 year olds playing with action figures and trying to decide if Darth Vader would be able to beat Stone Cold Steve Austin.

I cant breathe man

But i play with a lot of tyranids and tau so im also afraid of single army unbound

Count Adhemar wrote:

Not just their best unit but all best units from any source. The whole idea of Unbound really just puts me in mind of a bunch of 6 year olds playing with action figures and trying to decide if Darth Vader would be able to beat Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Not my idea of a wargame.

I get your point, but to me the purpose wouldn't be to play action figures. I would do it to field stuff that I can't justify in the rules but want to because of my fluff.

Eg. I have bought a Dark Elf Black Dragon because I love the model. I want it to be a Void Dragon used in the arena by my Beastmasters. Now, the unit with the most dragon-like rules in 40k is a heldrake with flamer. So I want to field one heldrake with my Dark Eldar, but don't want to pay the Chaos HQ and troop tax to do so. Time to go unbound.

[I also have a Kharybdiss, on the same logic, but I have no idea what 40k rules best represent an multi-headed, poisonous undersea monster.]

Plastikente wrote:

[I also have a Kharybdiss, on the same logic, but I have no idea what 40k rules best represent an multi-headed, poisonous undersea monster.]

Canoness during that time of the month...

I think that as 7th goes on Unbound is becoming less and less viable.

The introduction of so many Formations has made it easy to get what you want in most cases without having to pay a "tax". I'm yet to think of a list I'd actually want to play that I couldn't do within the Battleforged 'limitations'.

This is only going to become more so as more Dataslates, Codexes and Supplements come out.

So, really, the only reason I can see to go Unbound is a) Serious Spam or, b) Fringe Fluff (see above).

Literally just for fun, where we've come up with a scenario ahead of time. Like the dread battle Eye mentioned (I could only dream!)

We've got a game planned for new year based on the theft of Lethidia, with a bunch of beastmasters running Tyranid packs instead of beasts against a zombie horde a la Nurgle. The lists obviously had to be unbound, but at that point the scenarios start becoming so custom we've had to make up extra rules to make it work, so it's not so much unbound as just another homebrew.

Definitely don't think I could make a DE unbound list that was more likely to win than a battleforged one. Maybe it would work in different armies, I dunno.

Grub wrote:

Its a huge risk for sure not being able to claim objectives but could it ever really work? Just trying to table your opponent or force them off objectives?

Am I missing something?  Where does it say that unbound armies can't capture objectives?

Well if he has ObSec units on it, he gets it

Yeah, but that's also true if you take a Realspace Raider detachment, or any of the formations from the coven book. I've also not found it to be a big problem in my games so far - we are manoeuvrable enough to take objectives the opponent can't threaten or to concentrate our forces the mince ObSec units if we need to. And in any case, not having ObSec doesn't mean that you are forced to table your opponent to win.

I'd also like to point out that recent codices have all come out with alternative force org charts that don't have ObSec but give other benefits instead, such as Realspace Raiders. The more of those that come out, the fewer ObSec forces we face as people start to try those instead. I reckon the extra 3 FA slots are worth it for us, at any rate.

Count Adhemar wrote:

The whole idea of Unbound really just puts me in mind of a bunch of 6 year olds playing with action figures and trying to decide if Darth Vader would be able to beat Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Not my idea of a wargame.

This.

Unbound armies seem ideal for people who want to disregard both the game's lore and traditional notions of game balance. I would prefer not to play in those sorts of games.

If I want to create a storyline campaign with some friends that creates some unique situations requiring house rules and unbound armies, I don't need the rulebook's permission to do that. I need the rulebook to provide a framework for gameplay with people I don't know.

Calyptra wrote:

If I want to create a storyline campaign with some friends that creates some unique situations requiring house rules and unbound armies, I don't need the rulebook's permission to do that. I need the rulebook to provide a framework for gameplay with people I don't know.

Yes.

I've played a couple unbound games with my chaos army, but it's not because I'm trying to abuse anything more than just trying to combo certain units together and don't want to feel tied down by troop and hq taxes.

For example, this past saturday I wanted to take a huge unit of chaos marines with mark of khorne, icon of wrath, and fabius bile to be supported by be'lakor casting invisibility. Since having be'lakor alone wan't enough warp charges to count on the spell going off, I wanted an extra sorc and the last thing I wanted to do was pour more points into 3 additional units of chaos marines or cultists. I was already spending 350 points on troops and felt that was enough for a fun game trying something different.

It's not as bad for my dark eldar who will gladly grab more troops choices for foc freedom, but my chaos armies hates spending on those core units.

I played my pure unbound reaver army in a small local tournament I organised. We were playing Maelstrom missions to try out 7th edition which had just been released. I remember ending turn 1 in my final game with 13 victory points- lots of d3 results went my way. Proceeded to get tabled by turn 6 with a perfect counter- unbound venom spam.
Things would be quite different if that game was played now with the new DE dex. I could fit in even more reavers, they'd get fnp, regardless of anything, from T2/3 and the Caltrops can do stuff to Venoms that my Jinked-to-useless blasters couldn't manage.
For me, I really enjoyed the Unbound experience with an Arena Champ as Warlord and certainly did not miss ObSec. So long as there is a theme to Unbound lists, I am fine with it. Can't stand the idea of a cheese smorgasbord, as the rest have said.