The Players Pack for FOB NZGT has been revised.
Page 7 Army Limitations Para 2 now reads:
As per the “Matched Play
rules, armies must be battle-forged and you cannot create an army list
containing more than a total of two of
the detachments listed in the main rulebook on Pg.242-245.
The maximum number of detachments has been reduced from 3 to 2.
The rationale for this change is that it is felt that by limiting the number of Detachments, the armies that will be created will be more in the philosophy of a "Hobby Event". Restricting Detachments to two still allows players to personalise their list but also means that the potential for heavily skewed lists is minimised.
I appreciate that this restriction may not please everybody but if they take a step back I'm sure that they will recognise that it will still be able to create a fun and competitive list at 1750 points.
Hi Pete,
ReplyDeleteReally glad to be back for FOB NZGT. Enjoyed attending these tournaments years ago, and like many I got back into 40k in 8th.
Picking up the 8th ed starter was the beginning of an infection for all things Grandfather Nurgle. The recently released Chaos Daemons codex, alongside some great new sculpts, and a decent stretch of time ahead all seem to be aligned by fate for me to set a few good hobby goals.
Having run through some possible lists over the past week since the dropping of the Players Pack, a pustule of a problem became apparent. The Nurgle aligned Chaos Daemons faction or subfaction has a bit of an issue with limited Detachments that seems unique as far as I see it.
The rub of the boil is that when building a 'Nurgle Daemons armylist' you effectively start a detachment down on every other faction. This is because the recent Chaos Daemons codex, as a fairly new unique thing from what I can tell, has included this silly little tree called a 'Feculent Gnarlmaw' as a lynchpin model/unit to any Nurgle Daemon heavy army. They're 50 points each, about the size of a Redemptor Dreadnought, and sit in your deployment zone to give nearby Nurgle Daemons a little bit of extra defense and speed out of their deployment zone first turn, amoung other things. They also look pretty cool as a daemonic infestation sort of thing.
Which would all be great except for the fact of GW's rules design is that the only way to have these Nurgle trees in your battle-forged army is to take an entirely standalone detachment in the form of the 'Fortification Network' that grants no other command benefits, command points or battlefield role slots. Basically a 'detachment tax'.
This means with 2 max detachments allowed no Death Guard or rival Chaos god allies to a Nurgle Daemons host at most, but also building a mono-Nurgle Daemon army from one detachment is quite limiting - cramming a brigade forces 3 235pt each Soulgrinders as the Heavy support plus min units for the other requirements, and a battalion limits 3 HQs which is a tough squeeze when you're building 1650-1700 points from a possible roster that's very HQ dependent with 8 unique HQ choices, 2 unique troops and scant else.
For example tree issue aside, with 2 detachments of Nurgle Daemons I'd probably be inclined to go with something like a Patrol Detachment + Battalion, or two Battalions two unlock 4 or 5 HQ slots, with 4-6 Troops required. But if you're going 1750ish points of 2 detachments of Nurgle Daemons without the trees, it seems like you're missing a key part of what's supposed to make the army 'work'. A bit like a Iyanden Eldar fan presented with the requirement to put Spiritseers in their own standalone 'Detachment.'
So I guess I'm writing this for the purpose of asking if there can be some sort of allowance made for taking one or two of these 50 point 'Feculent Gnarlmaws' with Nurgle aligned Chaos Daemons without having them suck up an otherwise useless detachment. Even if a 1-2 CP tax is applied instead, or some other sort of compromise penalty.
I can't think of any other faction or subfaction this sort of limiting scenario otherwise applies to, but I have been out of the scene for awhile. I really like the 2 Detachment limit otherwise after seeing popular soup approach in LVO over the past week.
Great to have you back Courtney and also good to have another Nurgle Daemon.
DeleteOne of the key intentions of the limit of two Detachments is to force players to make hard decisions.
My guess is that a lot of the armies we see will be operating at that CP 6 +/- 1 area.
The option to take the trees is one you need to weigh up against the alternative of more characters or more Command Points. If you choose to go down the "tree" path then yes characters are limited to three.
I'm not unsympathetic but these are exactly the type of tough decisions I intended.
Fair enough Pete, thanks for the response. I will make something work :)
DeleteThe same impact will be felt by anyone who takes a fortification detachment. As you noted, you can take units as auxiliary detachments so if you want to take a couple of trees then take them as auxiliaries.
ReplyDelete