Command Point Confusion and the Death of the CP battery? 9th Edition Command Points explained

It's a beautiful deluge of leaks and reveals last week. My poor laptop is crying from the sudden strain and furious typing it must endure!

Hello chaps and chapettes, back in the classroom again to discuss the new Command Point structure for 9th edition. I have to admit when I first looked at I was the very definition of confusion. But as I delved more into the thinking of it, I could see the wheels turning and why the system was engineered so.

Let's start shall we?

First up, we have regenerating command points, for the reasons I outlined in an earlier article. They make a lot of sense, and despite the additional book keeping mean that you can spam your stratagems a little more. Now you can build around a Stratagem knowing you'll have access to it later in game, and don't feel too bad about popping it in a slightly sub-optimal situation.

Games Workshop clearly like this reactive and dynamic game play, as do I. They're a way of granting stupid powerful rules to units, but putting limitations on the times they can be applied... case in point, First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire! was an incredible ability that let Guardsmen punch way above their weight class by essentially shooting twice, and it cost basically nothing each time you wanted to do it. Of course the limitation is that you have to spend some points on at least a Platoon Commander, but it never was that arduous a points burden, and even though an argument could be made about him/her being sniped out, that was one round of sniper shooting not taking out someone more valuable.

Put it in the form of a stratagem, which can have it's own CP ear marked for it every turn means you're not locked into using it, and don't feel cheated if it never comes up. Imagine spending the points on a Platoon Commander only for your unit to sit at the back of the field and never get line of sight to anything to shoot at. Granted you can't spam it across the whole line, but you usually only want the Stratagem for a particular situation, and feel like a great general when you call it's best use.

The new stratagem they've outlined is a brilliant example of this:

Yes, we now have Attacks of Opportunity in 40K. My DndD soul is so happy now!

This is a great stratagem! There have been units that do something similar to this before, with special rules that deny escaping combat or dealing mortal wounds if someone leaves combat. The issue there is that if your target refuses to leave then the special rule, and the points per model you've paid for it, are wasted. That might well be incentive to use the unit as intended, but putting a niche use on a unit limits the overall use of that unit, particularly when local metas dictate so much about what is good in 40K. Preventing escape form combat means nothing if all your friends collect World Eaters.

This stratagem, more powerful so because it is a universal one, means that you can always punish cowardly tactics and running away. And it also really hurts Ultramarines, which is just great! As well as Riptides who frankly deserve it (even though I love them). 

Oh, it also hurts White Scars. 

Ah.

Well despite that, the power of it is muted somewhat my only being able to run it once a phase. 

A couple of things to pull extra from this Strat:

• What does engagement range mean?
• More or less confirmed that there are strats available outside of the Command phase.

But, you will get the bulk of your Command Points not from regeneration, but from the points cost of the game:

Which is... okay.

Well, it removes the burden of trying to fit a CP battery into every list, and the whole point of soup for many tourney level lists. The Loyal 32, referenced in the Warhammer Community article, has been a standby for many armies. That would be two Company Commanders and three Guardsmen squads, which give you +5 CP points. They were easy enough to squeeze into most soup lists, and you could even squeeze in more than two if you wanted buckets of CPs. This is why most tourneys instigated the rule of 3, limiting you to 3 detachments, stopping the CP farms that were created.

Basically it unfairly advantaged horde armies, and made some very awkward forces for middle ground ones. As an example, I toyed around with a starter 500 points Bloody Rose sisters army because I wanted a force full of close combat Angels:

• Canoness
• Min sized battle sister squad
• Zephyrim and Seraphim
• Exorcist

However the force I ended up with was Valorous Heart pseudo gun line in a Battalion:

• Canonness
• Missionary
• 3 Sisters squads
• 1 Seraphim Squad
• Exorcist

... simply because those +5CP alongside Miracle dice kicked out much more reliable damage.

Now since the starting CP is tied to points values rather than shoe horning in CP generating detachments, we can be a bit more flexible with the design of armies. I have no doubt another effective exploit of this is incoming, but there is already a limitation so... read on.

The next bit is that detachments now cost CP to use. 

The big change here is now you pay for allies. 

Which is fair enough actually. The Imperium has had it all it's own way when it comes to allies in 8th Edition, with other "factions" not really able to compete. This is going to limit the Imperial Soup lists out there even more.

But of course it would be unfair to make you pay for a detachment if you only took one. Now for the core detachments (Patrol, Battalion and Brigade), you get your CP spent on them refunded provided your Warlord is included.

A sensible measure, and bringing thing right back to the Codex Astartes that detachments were meant to be mirroring anyway. Really, apart from the Elites line this is the company make up for a Space Marine battle company. Space Wolves and Black Templars, please hold back your rage.

Speaking of Space Marines, you can see how this has been tweaked to help them out. Space Marines have a super inflated Elites section, to the point where a lot of their units compete for spots. Usually there would only be 3 slots for elites, but it looks like that's been upped to 6. 

Of course that means now you can have 6 Riptides in a single T'au Detachment, but lets not discuss that...

Dark Eldar players are probably also worried right now, since they're going to have to pay a premium in CP to get workable forces now. That or they'll ditch the split between covens, cults and kabals, which I dearly hope will happen.

So what's this all for? 

You could say it's to streamline the game, but it's clearly designed only for one purpose; break the soup and exploits of 8th's Detachment system. 

In practical terms, although you might have regenerating CPs now, you're functionally going to have the same number of CPs as the soup detachment lists out there, and in some cases maybe less. As a quick bit of maths, a dual battalion 2000 point list will get you 13 CP in 8th Edition. You might be able to add a Vanguard or other specialist one for 14CP. Now, with 2000 pts you get 12CP, and depending on the length of the game you get 4-6 more, adding one every turn. 

That gives you a little bit more to play with, but you're likely going to pick up other detachments to field cheesy Knights or triple Ravagers of a particular obsession. So basically the same. Regardless, the new system means you pay for this advantage rather than being encouraged to do it. All of which is good for the game, and narrative of your army. 

So I like it. It might seem a little convoluted for new players, but the advice you need to give is "stick with a core detachment, and add bits you think are cool later". Then everything should be fine!

Make sure you subscribe to the blog to get notifications, and leave a comment below. I've spoken in general terms, but I know there are going to be some specific issues with factions that need to be talked about, and you can voice your concerns in comments.

Until next time!

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