Unbound Detachments

I know a lot of people use the RSR detachment, as we are almost forced to unless taking a Formation, to gain as much access to our most powerful slot as possible.  Comparing the RSR directly to an Unbound detachment, there are basically just downsides to taking a "restricted" RSR.

I know when 7th (6th?) Edition first announced Unbound, it was frowned upon, but this was mostly because it appeared incredibly overpowered to be able to take units that weren't heavily restricted to any of the old style CAD restrictions that we had been so used to for the past 20 or so years.  This is definitely not the case any more, with almost unlimited ways of taking Formations and special Detachments to allow pretty much any unit you want into an army.  These Detachments don't only allow you to take what you like, but they also give you bonuses for doing so.  Therefore I struggle to understand why we, or anyone for that matter, should be poo pooed, or have issue taken with, if we decide to take an unbound list.

Has anyone had any experience with yourselves or others taking Unbound recently?  Do people complain?  Have you complained?

I took an Unbound Freakshow list to a GW tournament a couple of weeks back. Nobody even commented on the fact that it was Unbound. Brief report and list here.

Ah yea, I saw that. Nice work by the way

Played my first Unbound game last night. Opponent didn't complain.

I'm not sure how anybody could complain given the bonuses thrown around by the Decurion style detachments now. And with formations like the Eldar Aspect Host or Marine Armoured Task Force giving bonuses to units you're gonna take anyway in any army list it seems pretty rude to deny DE players the option to go unbound when there's pretty much zero point going with established Battleforged options. Objective Secured is of way less benefit to DE than it is to say marines. The cover bonuses of the RSR aren't worth playing for. Sure take them if your happens to fit into those orgs but I don't think it's worth building to stay Battleforged. Unbound is the way to go with DE, grabbing whatever standalone formations you need to make things happen.

If people have a problem with this then either they fail to understand the place the DE codex is in or they're the kind of player you should probably avoid anyway. Good to see unbound being allowed at a tourny.

The problem comes when you decide to show up with 4 WraithKnights and 500 points or so of Dark Eldar. There will always be that guy that does this when given the option.

Inevitably when you say lets play unbound you run the risk of dealing with this sort of thing...

Massaen wrote:

The problem comes when you decide to show up with 4 WraithKnights and 500 points or so of Dark Eldar.

Someone did almost exactly that at the ATC recently. A Windrider Host and 4 Wraithknights - and that was battle-forged!

Count Adhemar wrote:

Massaen wrote:

The problem comes when you decide to show up with 4 WraithKnights and 500 points or so of Dark Eldar.

Someone did almost exactly that at the ATC recently. A Windrider Host and 4 Wraithknights - and that was battle-forged!

This is my point. With the advent of Formations, most of the time taking an Unbound list is actually a downside nowadays.

There have always been Those Guys who will take whatever BS list they can to dominate a table with cheese. They always existed. Whether they use a deathstar or Wraith Knight spam doesn't matter, they find a way to drown everyone in cheese in their quest to win at all costs. Ignore those players, you can't do anything about them except laugh and say "no thx" when they ask for a game.

For me the new era of Formations is a godsend. I can build fluffy or thematic lists to my hearts content and a lot of the time they'll have some rules or extra's that will make them playable. This is allowing players to field the forces they always wanted to without the FO charts getting in the way. Yes some guys are abusing it and being stupid but many players, I'm sure, are relishing the freedom of list creation now.

I'm working towards fielding my DE as a sky raiding force (calling it a Sky Splinter Cell atm ) calling upon the CE Aspect Host Formation to give me 3 Swooping Hawk units. Could never have done that in previous editions of the game. I can field all Scourges/Swooping Hawks now if I wanted. I'm looking at a way to use one of my long-time favourite armies (chaos Alpha Legion) in the new 40k and with the new SM codex it looks like it might be possible to do that using SM Scouts and Sternguard for their marines and using IG or Tempestus units for the cult units and armour. I don't think it's been possible to represent the Alpha Legion since what? 3rd edition? LAst codex I bought bfore coming back to 40k was the Chaos codex that had special legion rules in it (was the first to introduce chaos cultists?).

You can take all sorts of themed armies now using Formations or simply going Unbound. Some of them may just circumvent what have become arbitrary FO's and some of them give us freedoms players never had before. Just ignore the guys exploiting that to take dumb lists they know are 99% impossible to defeat.

It's funny: my group says that using formations makes me the guy from the first paragraph.

Quote :

Has anyone had any experience with yourselves or others taking Unbound recently? Do people complain? Have you complained? Smile

No, probably not to the extent you are looking for. That said I have played against armies that have that extra inclusion outside of the FOC or even 'illegal' wargear. Because it was cool, or they bought the model and couldn't squeeze everything they wanted or whatever.
I'll play against anything without complaining but if someone is blatantly trying to abuse it I'll definitely draw attention to it and offer to break out my big guns.

Otoh we have very recently started changing small things to suite ourselves, with group approval. For example orks cybork is 5++ cost 10 pts, boss nobs of all flavors have +1 Ld stock, and mob rule is D3 instead of D6.
Any non terminator IC that can replace a melee weapon with a melee weapon can instead replace either a melee weapon or ranged weapon, and the same for ranged. Some others we are discussing implementing are: Windriders are 1/3 HWs, all distort below the level of HWCs are back to the old distort.. Theres a few more but you get the idea. It runs in the same vein as unbound or larger tournament erratas and so on. I really wish ITC would take the reins and make a serious move to balance codices themselves since even a semi official thing like that would be well accepted by the masses I believe.

Anyway no prob with unbound but at this point I would just prefer to discuss some of the issues those armies players have and try to come to consensus. Then if so add it to the local FUQ/Errata.