#random game design post huh I gues the media studies MA was not for nothing

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

I wonder what will happen to Detachments in 10th Edition

Because right now with Nephilim it does not seem to make much sense. So, before Nephilim dropped, you essentially had 12CP, and if you wanted to refuse paying the "troop tax" because you wanted many units from a non-troop unit but they'd go over the point limit if you put them into Brigade/Patrol detachments, you could pay extra CP (usually 3) for Vanguard or Outrider detachments respectively.

So there was a real choice. But with CP down to 6, and with your Warlord Trait and Relic costing 1 each, going that road would either mean starting the game at 3CP with zero extra abilities, or if you picked any you come close to 1 or even 0 CP.

Now you essentially run a Batallion or a Brigade, put your Warlord in there to make it free, and use your 6CP to gear up AND have some points over, because starting with 0 severely locks you out of rerolls and strategems.

So generally, what is the design purpose of those things?

One point of it is to limit the number of specific unit types or exclude them from the reguar army - Fortifications, Flyers, and Lord of Wars come to mind. But right now aside from the limits on flyers and "don't be as stupid as to bring a 6 CP cost Ultraheavy detachment to a 2000p game" they don't do much. Of course it is also to stop cheese armies like "I just bring every heavy support thing in the codex three times and blast you off the table"

When the two most used are essentially "just throw in there whatever you want", the point of it is essentially lost. So #1 prediction for 10th: Generalist Detachments will get nerfs. Patrol with all options besides troops reduced to 1 (from 2) Batallion will be seen as the "small brigade", so it will have 1 mandatory in every slot (besides flyers), and the Birgade itself will probably have more mandatory slots as well, probably on the troop slot.

Another reason they exist is that they keep troops relevant, which goes a long way to keep base units as the iconic faces of their armies - and since you HAVE to take them for efficiency, you want to build on synergies - or you try to minimize your costs with the cheapest option aviable. It's why Orks have Gretchens. In a world without troop tax, those would be entirely pointless.

At the same time, it makes any detachments that do not need troops special. GW essentialy throws a hurdle at you but also gives you the option to build around it. The problem right now that there is no benefit to picking those. You still bring 2000 points to the table one way or another, just because you spread them on different models does not warrant the steep price you got to pay for them.

To have this design make sense you need to make those more attractive. So #2 prediction for 10th: The highlighted unit type will get a specific buff. My idea was that for example if you pick outriders, you get a short pregame move, and if your units already have them (because Outriders, duh), you add range to it. This could be done for every unit type of course.

If this seems too random, also consider Faction-Specific perks instead, such as Marine units of the type benefitting more from specific doctrines, or T'au units benefitting from specific Mont'ka or Kauyon rulings.

In theory a third point of various detachments was to have an army of "multiple parts". So you could have one group with a subfaction choice good for holding the backline, and one for dashing into the front. With the recent tournament rules this has been forbidden, everything with a variable subfaction needs to come from the same one. No more mixing chapters, clans, or septs. I can see why they did it from a balancing point of view, but it still does hurt the concept of detachments overall.

Of course, all this just makes sense if you keep the system. For all we know GW could for 10th edition just throw their hands into the air, say "just bring whatever models you want we don't care", refuse to elaborate further and just leave the room. Not very likely to happen and I think since in the future there will still be a troop tax - and therefore options to avoid troop tax - we won't be seeing the end of a detachment system anytime soon.

What we will get however are faction specific detachments in addition to the regular, like Farsight's "The Eight". That sounds like a fun idea to give niche units a chance to take center stage, especially if you mix in the idea of specialist detachments. You can load them up with really crazy relics and warlord traits, and then lock those behind very specific unit choices. Would make it easy as hell to balance. Sure, you want the "super-cannon/ability"? Better jump through some hoops then and take some limitations!

#warhammer 40k #wh40k #warhammer 40000 #random game design post huh I gues the media studies MA was not for nothing #haha just kidding I still found no job in my field