Oldhammer Format

Preface:  I put this in the DE discussion area because while I was scrolling through a couple of different DE homebrew codicies (which are for the most part awesome and I really enjoy reading), getting anyone besides close friends to go along with them can be a pretty tough sell.  So instead I decided to come up with a format that makes DE in their current state a bit more playable (along with other neglected armies).  

I don't bring my DE to tournaments anymore, despite them being my favorite army by far, they just really can't compete with serious tourney armies in the more popular formats (ITC/NOVA/etc.)  There was an article on Frontline Gaming a while back about a format called Oldhammer basically aimed at rolling back a little of the layered rules and overly complicated army construction that now exist due to the myriad of formations, detachments, and dataslates, and at the same time leveling the playing field a bit between armies that got awesome formations and those that didn't.  An added bonus of this simplification is to reduce game times, due to lower points and fewer rules (which for me is a big plus, I'm a reasonably fast player and I've had plenty of tournament games end on 5 due to time, sometimes with an abbreviated T5 that's mostly just talked through).

Players in my local store seemed pretty open to it.  We've got a solid mix of just about everything from orks/sisters/BA to Eldar/Superfriends/Daemons.  I expanded a bit on the original idea and came up with the following guidelines, any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.

1500 points
ITC FAQ/Missions (since they're pretty ubiquitous and well accepted)
1 CAD or codex detachment (RSR, Cotierre,  NSF, etc.. This may not be a formation) + 1 Allied detachment, Inq. Detachment, or Assassin (Battle bros count as AoC, no self-allying)
No SH/GC LoW choices
No Forge World
No more than 1 Special Character or Relic total (so either 1 SC or 1 relic, but not both)
No Repeated HQ choices
No more than 2 of the same Non-Troop choice regardless of FoC slot (stuff like Land Raider variants count as the same thing, note that this doesn't include Ded. Transports since they aren't their own choice)
No more than 3 of the same Troops choice (armies that only have 2 Troop entries may take up to 4, armies with only 1 Troop entry up to 6)
Armies with access to "Decurion style" detachments may take one, however you only get the overall detachment bonus (not the individual formation bonuses), the units taken must fit into a CAD, all of the above restrictions still apply, and you still have to abide by all the restrictions for those detachments (like the 1 core/1 Auxillary minimum for most of them).Possible Alternative: Any army with a Decurion-style detachment can swap the detachment command benefit for ObSec in a standard CAD


I'm not claiming it perfectly balances everything, there will always be good and bad armies, but it seems fairly straight forward to me and levels the playing field to the point where even the "bad" armies can make a list that isn't hopelessly outmatched.  It still lets you use some of the faction specific rules that add flavor, like the Talon Strike Force DSing turn 1, or the Necrons being extra tough, at the expense of ObSec.  But keeps you from layering bonuses to the point of absurdity.  Since it's only 1500 points the restriction on duplicated units doesn't hit armies with fewer choices as hard (I'm thinking of things like Sisters, 3 exorcists seem pretty standard at 1850, but at 1500 I think they're ok with just 2).  Also I wanted to avoid specifically targeted nerfs/fiddling wherever possible.  I keep going back and forth between 1 SC/Relic or Zero, I'd personally prefer zero but I think 1 total is a reasonable compromise and forces armies with good chars/relics to make a serious choice, Fatey or Grimoire, Khan or Hunter's eye, Tiggy or Shield Eternal, etc..  Right now Imperial Knights aren't allowed, but I could probably revisit that after some testing.

Anyway I'm quite sure I've rambled enough.  Anyone have any thoughts, questions, comments, or criticisms?  Anything obviously abuse-able I've overlooked?  Any factions that are overly hamstrung by these restrictions (keeping in mind that everyone else is getting similarly limited)?  And I guess most importantly, would you be interested in playing with a format like this?

I think some of these changes are fine to simplify the game and make it easier on old-timers or people with lives to keep up with the rules, while others are heavy-handed and simply make certain armies, detachments, and things unplayable for no good reason. I'll put it in a quote and respond to each issue in color:

Oldhammer wrote:

1500 points - Fine
ITC FAQ/Missions (since they're pretty ubiquitous and well accepted) Fine
1 CAD or codex detachment (RSR, Cotierre,  NSF, etc.) + 1 Allied detachment (Battle bros count as AoC, no self-allying) - This goes against the core game design. Some armies can't even take an allied detachment or CAD(like harlequins or inquisition), and can't take even basic detachments out of their book under this ruling because doing so wouldn't meet the 1500 point limit, but would disqualify them from taking anything else. The better solution is to simply change this line to "2 Detachments in total, "decurion style" counts as a single detachment for these purposes." I also wouldn't change battle brothers. They're fine as is, especially now that they can't begin the game embarked on one another's transports, which means no drop pods for units that don't have them available in their own formation/detachment.
No LoW choices - Fine
No Forge World - Fine
No more than 1 Special Character or Relic total (so either 1 SC or 1 relic, but not both) - Meh, why? This unnecessarily punishes codices that are designed to be largely character-driven, like Chaos and CSM, neither of which need punished further than GW already has.
No Repeated HQ choices - Again, this unnecessarily punishes codices that don't have a large variety of available HQs and doesn't do anything to simplify the game, imo.
No more than 2 of the same Non-Troop choice regardless of FoC slot (stuff like Land Raider variants count as the same thing, note that this doesn't include Ded. Transports) Again, going against game design..this rule would completely disqualify plenty of formations/detachments that require 3 of the same non-troop choice.
No more than 3 of the same Troops choice (armies that only have 2 Troop entries may take up to 4, armies with only 1 Troop entry up to 6) Same as above, you're trying to limit formations/detachments in a blanket way that simply isn't meant to work with GW's game. You'd be better off making your own force org, and making all players use your for org chart where you could make considerations for armies that don't have troops, HQs, etc.
Armies with access to "Decurion style" detachments may take one, however you only get the overall detachment bonus (not the individual formation bonuses), the units taken must fit into a CAD, all of the above restrictions still apply, and you still have to abide by all the restrictions for those detachments (like the 1 core/1 Auxillary minimum for most of them). This simply isn't really fair. Many of these "decurion style" detachments come with serious taxes and penalties that are only offset by the formation special rules. If they aren't getting them, it takes away a significant portion of the reason to take it to begin with, making your game favor armies that have been given better independent formations outside of the "decurion style" setup(like space marines), at the expense of all others.

Generally speaking, when I see a TO make such heavy handed changes to the intended game locally, I either actively oppose the tournament, perhaps organizing a tournament on the same day, or I go to said tournament with a list that absolutely abuses their own house rules because I have the money, time, intelligence, and inclination to do so, simply to prove a point.

Much to my chagrin, my antics ended up causing a local store to close once. This wasn't a desired outcome, but it was one that was earned on their part, I think. Anyone making tournament rules needs to consider everyone, and not just the majority of player's armies(eldar, space marines, etc). DE, Harlequins, Inquisition, Sisters of Battle...all of these need to be considered when making house rules. These people paid too much money for their models to be disqualified from local tournaments by overzealous, heavy-handed TOs.

I'm not saying YOU are those things. Otherwise you wouldn't be here asking for input on your rules. This is just something I'm passionate about, so my appologies for the rant.

I'm at work so I can't really elaborate but in summary I agree with the above. It's not any armies fault what they were given and many of the changes seem to be a heavy handed punishment for being strong.

Of particular note I would like to say that no LoW should really hat be no SH or GMC as the avatar of khaine, Dante, imotekh are not even remotely over powered.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

so my appologies for the rant.

Haha no appologies needed, I asked for opinions, and I appreciate the feedback.  I'm typing up a more in depth response but my main point is that, yes it does heavily limit formations (it essentially eliminates them by design), and yes there is some collateral damage (in terms of hurting weaker armies in addition to the stronger ones), but the question I kept asking myself when drawing up these rules was basically: "Is X under/over-powered army, relatively better off or worse off?"  and while some of the restrictions might hurt a weaker army a little, overall I still think they have more of a fighting chance.

The Red King wrote:

Of particular note I would like to say that no LoW should really hat be no SH or GMC as the avatar of khaine, Dante, imotekh are not even remotely over powered.

Fair enough, that works for me.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

the question I kept asking myself when drawing up these rules was basically: "Is X under/over-powered army, relatively better off or worse off?"  and while some of the restrictions might hurt a weaker army a little, overall I still think they have more of a fighting chance.

I disagree with you. I think this hurts the armies that are already in the worse positions the most. The armies in the best positions have the most formations available to them, so all these nitpicky restrictions leave them with a far greater array of choices than armies that get less attention already.

May as well call your version of rules "Hurrah Space Marines - Screw Everyone else."

It seems unlikely that we're going to agree on this topic, so I'll bow out as to leave you to your machinations.

Is the point of no forge world to limit the amount of books you have to reference rules for?

Just want to note that not all forge world models are extremely powerful, some are well balanced. Of course it would be really ridiculous to go through every single Forge World book to make a list of what would be acceptable.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Anyone making tournament rules needs to consider everyone, and not just the majority of player's armies(eldar, space marines, etc). DE, Harlequins, Inquisition, Sisters of Battle...all of these need to be considered when making house rules. These people paid too much money for their models to be disqualified from local tournaments by overzealous, heavy-handed TOs.

I completely agree, part of what prompted this was the fact that a number of local players (specifically BA and Ork ones) along with myself (with my DE) have become somewhat annoyed with the fact that we can't realistically use our armies in a competitive sense.  

You aren't wrong in calling what I've proposed heavy handed, it's intended to be.  I've been a competitive player for quite some time (was a double beast pack player in 6th, currently I've been running a Bark-star with DA chars/Tig-conclave/70 wolves), and what I see in the current competitive scene is that in order to have a chance either you stack special rules through formations/allies/psychics, or get a bunch or free stuff (or both).  If you play an army that can't do one of those you are better off saving your entry fee and might as well just hangout and have a beer (which is what I've seen a number of people do).  GW may eventually figure out how to make decent rules for every army and level the playing field that way, but personally I prefer de-escalation and this is an attempt at that through curbing those 2 things (excessive rules stacking and free stuff).  Probably should have made that clearer from the get go, since I think it explains the motivation behind a lot of the restrictions.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

1 CAD or codex detachment (RSR, Cotierre,  NSF, etc.) + 1 Allied detachment (Battle bros count as AoC, no self-allying) - This goes against the core game design. Some armies can't even take an allied detachment or CAD(like harlequins or inquisition), and can't take even basic detachments out of their book under this ruling because doing so wouldn't meet the 1500 point limit, but would disqualify them from taking anything else. The better solution is to simply change this line to "2 Detachments in total, "decurion style" counts as a single detachment for these purposes." I also wouldn't change battle brothers. They're fine as is, especially now that they can't begin the game embarked on one another's transports, which means no drop pods for units that don't have them available in their own formation/detachment.

 That's a fair criticism.  I had thought of Harlies when writing it up but left some of the specifics out for brevity's sake (we've got a Harlie player so it'd def be accounted for), my initial thought was just to make all the chars be both HQ or Elite choices (so you could take 2 seers, 2 jesters, and a solitaire).  Inquisition, I'm slightly less sure about, but I don't think I've seen them used as much more than skull caddies and psy-batteries, but my knee-jerk reaction would be to just make their squads into troops.  I'm sure there's other faction/subfactions that'll have problems and need a slight tweak here or there, but this is definitely a work in progress.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

No more than 1 Special Character or Relic total (so either 1 SC or 1 relic, but not both) - Meh, why? This unnecessarily punishes codices that are designed to be largely character-driven, like Chaos and CSM, neither of which need punished further than GW already has.

I don't see how this is quite as damaging as you make it seem.  Sure Fatey+Grimoire is the go-to for almost every Daemon list, but with every faction taking a hit regarding abuse-able/overpowered stuff, I don't think it leaves them unplayable.  Likewise with CSM, I'm not sure which SC/relic combo they need to make them viable.  Allowing one lets you keep your favorite character or piece of wargear, but prevents things like Azzy/Sammy/Tiggy/Shield Eternal being stuck into a super unit (like I do in my Bark-star lol).

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

No Repeated HQ choices - Again, this unnecessarily punishes codices that don't have a large variety of available HQs and doesn't do anything to simplify the game, imo.

 At 1500 points what armies can't function without 2 of the same HQ choices?  Orks maybe?  But 2 warbosses seems out of place at 1500 to me and they have plenty of other options.  Nids? Not spamming flyrants might seem sub-par now but with overall de-escalation I think it's a net positive.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

No more than 2 of the same Non-Troop choice regardless of FoC slot (stuff like Land Raider variants count as the same thing, note that this doesn't include Ded. Transports) Again, going against game design..this rule would completely disqualify plenty of formations/detachments that require 3 of the same non-troop choice.

That's partly the intention, and for a number of things it'd just force you to take slightly non-standard choices if you desperately wanted that formation as part of a decurion.  Formations aren't actually pickable by themselves as I have it now.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

No more than 3 of the same Troops choice (armies that only have 2 Troop entries may take up to 4, armies with only 1 Troop entry up to 6) Same as above, you're trying to limit formations/detachments in a blanket way that simply isn't meant to work with GW's game. You'd be better off making your own force org, and making all players use your for org chart where you could make considerations for armies that don't have troops, HQs, etc.

 This restriction was partly in response to a comment on the original FG post which suggested just 1500 CAD, no SH/GC.  The main counterpoint was that it'd quickly turn into just Scatbike, Spider, and D-cannon spam, so I wanted to build in some way to limit spam without hurting armies with limited choices too badly.  Eldar are still well off, having good units in every slot and at 1500 it's harder to completely max an FOC, but likewise stuff like GK (with only strikes and Terms, and no one really takes terms) can still get 4 Strike squads which is decent at 1500.  Heck even DE, I'll gladly bust out my wyches again to fill in those last 2 troop slots.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Armies with access to "Decurion style" detachments may take one, however you only get the overall detachment bonus (not the individual formation bonuses), the units taken must fit into a CAD, all of the above restrictions still apply, and you still have to abide by all the restrictions for those detachments (like the 1 core/1 Auxillary minimum for most of them). This simply isn't really fair. Many of these "decurion style" detachments come with serious taxes and penalties that are only offset by the formation special rules. If they aren't getting them, it takes away a significant portion of the reason to take it to begin with, making your game favor armies that have been given better independent formations outside of the "decurion style" setup(like space marines), at the expense of all others.

 This is still a concept in progress for sure.  I think a lot of the faction specific overall decurion bonuses are extremely fluffy (which I admittedly like), and taken by themselves aren't at all overpowered.  In fact I think they align pretty well with the level of bonuses that other factions get from their codex detachments.  It's just when you start stacking them with the various formation bonuses that certain armies/units kind of pull away.  A possible compromise would be to say that any army with a Decurion-style can simply just swap that command benefit for ObSec in a standard CAD.  Would that sit better with you?

You mentioned showing up with a list that abuses the guide-lines.  If you feel so inclined, how would you do that with this?

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

May as well call your version of rules "Hurrah Space Marines - Screw Everyone else."

 This I definitely don't see, free transport gladius is out as is any kind of super friends (with the ally change).  I guess I'm not following how a CAD of SM with limited Character support is harder for DE/Orks/whatever to deal with than those.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Is the point of no forge world to limit the amount of books you have to reference rules for?

Just want to note that not all forge world models are extremely powerful, some are well balanced. Of course it would be really ridiculous to go through every single Forge World book to make a list of what would be acceptable.

Pretty much.  I don't know any armies that can't compete without FW (orks losing their bike-SC are probably the worst hit), and it adds a bunch of complications.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

 Formations aren't actually pickable by themselves as I have it now.

Sure they are. All formations are detachments. You allowed "A single CAD or codex detachment". Thus a formation from a codex satisfies that requirement, leaving me allowed to also purchase an Allied detachment in addition to my formation.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

You mentioned showing up with a list that abuses the guide-lines.  If you feel so inclined, how would you do that with this?

Primarily by leveraging my knowledge of the rules against TOs who's knowledge is often less, such as in the case above. I don't blame them or consider myself superior as a person. A big part of it is because I simply have more free time than most to debate, research, and memorize rules than most people have, which probably speaks to other aspects of my life that are likely lacking, in comparison. Most TOs, when I bring a fully painted army that technically follows all their house rules, some models of which may or may not have been specifically purchased for play in their tournament, are hesitant to renege on their written house rules on the spot. And the ones that are willing to do so generally don't last long in the hobby as TOs.

The shops and such that allow them to play there would stop allowing them to do so, because not allowing someone to use models that they purchased specifically for your tournament, that were allowed by your written tournament rules is what loses customers and closes shops down.

Essentially, I can assure you that any system of rules which CAN be broken, I can break, down to the point where we've siplified the rules to the level of Age of Sigmar(Do what you want edition), or yahtzee.

At least when the rules are more complex, there are so many WAYS to do awesome, OP stuff, that other people may well come up with a way that is slightly better than your very nearly optimal way. The more simple a strategy game becomes, the closer it gets to that 1 "win button", where you simply know that whoever gets to go first and places their troop in a certain territory in australia, that guy basically wins the game.

But honestly, my opinion doesn't matter because you said you've got all your local players on board with it. I'd just never play in a tournament like that without showing up and breaking it to make a point that you can't comp broken. People can basically come up with OP stuff no matter what you do. Alternate option: Actually play an edition of 40k you like, and just give rules for ways for special codices to participate(like inquisition or harlies).

Honestly, the suggestions you made for both harlies and inquisition instantly made them broken too. If I could have obsec inquisitorial warbands, they'd be freaking amazing. Same with being able to take harlequins in both HQ and ELITE slots in a CAD. You could do so much more with that than you can with it now, it'd make your head spin.[/quote]
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BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

 Formations aren't actually pickable by themselves as I have it now.

Sure they are. All formations are detachments. You allowed "A single CAD or codex detachment". Thus a formation from a codex satisfies that requirement, leaving me allowed to also purchase an Allied detachment in addition to my formation.

Imprecise wording on my part to be sure, but this is still very much in the concept phase, not the legally binding everything written out phase.  Codex Detachment refers to CAD-like things, meaning detachments that are collections of Force Org. slots, like those listed as examples (Real Space Raiders, Nemesis Strike Force, etc.), I'd provide a comprehensive list once finalized.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Honestly, the suggestions you made for both harlies and inquisition instantly made them broken too. If I could have obsec inquisitorial warbands, they'd be freaking amazing. Same with being able to take harlequins in both HQ and ELITE slots in a CAD. You could do so much more with that than you can with it now, it'd make your head spin.

Having not looked at Inq. stuff in a while, yeah ObSec Land raiders and Valks is problematic. Might be better to make the +1 allied slot into +1 allied/Inq./Assassin. I'm not convinced letting harlies have ObSec Troupes at the expense of Rising Crescendo and fewer support characters (although removing the crappy FA/HS tax) makes them over the top, much better for sure but it's not like they've been wrecking top tables lately.

And I was more-so asking for examples of a list that'd break the format, if you've got the time and inclination to put one together (totally understand if you don't haha).

There are formations that have force org slots that you can choose...the game simply isn't designed to be shoehorned into the box you're trying to put it in, is my point. You're better off with a complete redesign of how you want armies fielded that doesn't rely on the GW formations or detachments system at ALL.

But like I said before, we're unlikely to agree, so I'll leave you to it. Good luck!