9 things we know about 40K 9th Edition Part 3: Moar Command Points and Size of Games Explained!

Doubling up on this one since there isn't a huge amount of detail to go through. Let's see what's new!



Hello chaps and chapettes, we're back in the classroom to discuss, well Command Points and the size of games. One of these is news, the other... well actually I don't know.

Let's start with the boring one, as in the size of games, and what this actually means.



Now this might come as a shock to some, but you don't have to play 40K with 2000 point armies.

Breathe, I know this is surprising and startling news.

In fact, most f the games I have played in 40K tend to be around the 500 point mark. As a Physics teacher (and soon to be Head of Physics), I ran a school club for 40K. You only really have an hour at best of play time a week, and running a full game of 1500 points never fits in that time slot.

As such, the vast majority of games I played or refereed were smaller scale starter army games. It got to the point where I would finely craft army lists to fit into such small scale matches, and I have become a master of eeking every last drop of competitiveness out of Start Collecting kits. 

School's League lists were my bread and butter.

Buuut, that probably the big reason for pointing it out now in the advertising for 9th Edition. When a new game comes out the School's League generally takes that rule set to get the kids involved in the latest thing. When 8th Edition dropped it was 650 lists of 40K, and when Kill Team was released it was 100 point Core games as tournament standard. 

For any who don't know, the School's League is the, well, school level competition tournament for Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar. They run very much as tournament lite sessions, but are still viciously competitive affairs in some areas. I remember vividly the total cheese lists that were produced by some 13-year olds, and you'd be amazed at just how much Chaos Knight you can pack into 500 points.

Great fun though, since the games tend to be 30 minutes long, and you get to play against more people than you otherwise would in larger scale games.

What I'm hoping here is that the smaller games sizes refer to patrol level missions, with specific scenarios geared towards lower point lists. The usual mission for School's league was the generic mission for each game system, simply to fit the number of models. Put it this way; when you have three units in your entire army you're unlikely to capture 4 objectives. 

Of course, this is where more CP comes in too.

If you play small scale games, then you usually have about 3-4 Command points to play with, maximum. Patrol Detachments do not give CP, and you're unlikely to be able to fit a competitive battalion into 500 points. I know there are some cheaper ones out there (and here's a good video on what they are... I need to reply to this guy though and point out some bits), but you'll still lock yourself out of some very competitive unit choices.

What this means is that you have maybe one or two wild cards up your sleeve in terms of stratagems, and nothing for re-rolls. That's fine, but we're seeing much more proliferation of unit locked stratagems in more recent codices, and in some tournaments you have to pick a handful of Stratagems when you make your list to prevent you taking too long mid-game to decide what to spend CP on.

As an example, Intercessors have a unique stratagem for each of their gun types, but they run to about 2-3CP each. One of these Stratagems is vital for making the weapon effective, the one where Bolt Rifles turn into Rapid Fire 2 for a turn. Since you can run that a maximum times of twice in a single game, it's a little disheartening, but more importantly pushes you into larger point games so you can try out that army theme you have in your head.

Personally I'm in favour of two different mechanics rather than just giving more CP:

  • Kill Team style regenerating CP every turn.
  • 0CP Stratagems locked to individual units.

Regenerating CP takes a bit more time to manage, but it means you can have an actual working strategy every turn... if you love to build around Blood Angels Smash Captains they could be jumping around on Wings of Fire every turn, and if your wanted the bullet storm Rapid Fire 2 Intercessors in Imperial Fists you could have them.

You get the same effect with 0CP stratagems, and it encourages you into more diverse armies so you can pack more stratagems into one list (remember you can only use a stratagem once per round so two units can't benefit from the same stratagem). 

The note from James Workshop in the video is that we can expect less soup. Imperial Soup has been a common recipe at tournaments, using Guardstra Militarum as the stock for your gooey Blood Angel and Knight casserole. They're there as a CP battery rather than tactical choice, and this upsets people because it breaks fluff rules. Personally I think it's a perfect fit; Guard are just kind of there holding the line whilst more elite elements get the job done, but I can see why people get annoyed at having to sit through all that lasgun fire and then still take a thunder hammer to the face.

What this most likely means is that mono-faction lists will be getting a CP boost compared to mix and match. 

Great, no complaints there. I tend to only build mono-faction lists, so I'm happy with that. 

However, it might be worded that mono-faction means mono-army trait too. By that I mean mono-chapter tactic, mono-regiment, mono-cult creed etc. As in only Iron Hands, or only Cult of the 4 Armed Emperor. This would break a lot of lists that are competitive right now.

Which I am still okay with. 

Not that I bear any grudge against competitive lists, its just that truly competitive players aren't really married to any one army composition, and are happy to switch out as needs be. The common parlance is that someone "pilots" a list, rather than saying it's theirs. This distancing means that you can get over the rules changes to units a lot more easily. So any change to the soupiness of tourney lists won't affect them in the long run.

I do think this will reduce the overall flexibility of the list design process though. You may really like having Valorous Heart Sisters of Battle as your battle line whilst needing Bloody Rose Zephyrim, and being able to field both means you can have the models you like without a loss in rules effectiveness. I think that a change like this would really highlight the differences in comparative strengths of certain Convictions/Traits/Tactics etc. whilst simultaneously pushing niche uses well out of view. 

Well, we'll see what happens. I need to go a mark some tests now. Make sure to Subscribe to the blog, and leave a comment down below if you come up with anything more to add to the discussion.

UPDATE:

Yeah, Games Workshop just revealed on Warhammer Community that they'll be going with a regenerating Command Point system:
The Command phase is a quick new addition to the turn sequence. In this phase, Battle-forged armies will acquire new Command points and spend the ones they have on certain Stratagems.
I'm not too happy about having to use the Stratagems in a particular phase, as it means reactive stratagems are now gone. The restriction adds a layer of complexity and cautiionn to everything. If you have a stratagem that allows you to fight twice in close combat, and you fail your charge not only have you lost your main damage that turn but also wasted the CPs. 

I'm sure this has been thought of though, and the wording of the reveal says "on certain Stratagems" meaning we may have a slew of out of phase stratagems in coming. These could be like "fight as if the the assault round", allowing which would mean you could potential fight, fall back in the movement phase, and charge something else, for a really efficient wrap, slap, repeat plan. For completeness, here are the phases:



We'll need to see the details of it next week. Interesting thing? Both players use stratagems in the each players Command phase. That will be quite fun! I can already see the Vects, Tzeenthcians and 4 Armed Emperor cults owning this phase in some small scale counter tactics and denial stratagems!

Until next time!

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