New to 7th Edition, a question about detachments

[ikew]

I'm just getting into 7th edition and was wondering as I read the new rules about army creation: can I create a battle forged army list with any number of combined arms detachments from any number of factions (within the given point value for the list)? As I read the rules, it would seem that I can, but this broadly expanded freedom for army building is so new I question my reading.

I'm interested in creating an Eldar corsair army using the an Eldar combined arms detachment and a Realspace Raiders detachment from the new Dark Eldar codex. It would seem I could do so within the battle forged restrictions - is this the case? I suppose I could also include a formation like the Tau Firebase Support Cadre and a dataslate unit like a Vindicare assassin (and a combined arms detachment from Codex: Tyrannids, for that matter) and still have a battle forged list. I'm dumbfounded by the options - am I reading this wrong?

Thanks for any feedback.

[Houghten]

Yes, you can absolutely do that.

[ElectricPaladin]

Nope. You're basically right.

Your army is now composed of as many detachments as you want. Any detachment can come from any codex or dataslate. A formation is a detachment, as is the classic "combined arms" detachment, as is the "allied" detachment. I haven't read Codex: Assassins, yet, but it seems like a single assassin is also a detachment. The allies chart is no longer just about the relationship between your "main" detachment and your "allied" detachment; it now applies to the relationships between everything on the table, based on its faction of origin.

It's a whole new, crazy world.

[ikew]

Wow. Thanks for your responses. While I know there's ample room for abuse, I really like the new freedom. Perhaps someday I'll even try unbound, though the group I play with will likely be reluctant...

Thanks again!

[ElectricPaladin]

Wow. Thanks for your responses. While I know there's ample room for abuse, I really like the new freedom. Perhaps someday I'll even try unbound, though the group I play with will likely be reluctant...

Thanks again!

Yeah. I think that this really cements 40k as a game about blowing **** up, with fights as "scenes" in an ongoing narrative, rather than as a hard-minded, serious tactical game. I can't imagine how tournament players are continuing to make this work, and I don't understand why they don't switch to a game with more serious rules, like DZC.

[SnakeChisler]

Yeah. I think that this really cements 40k as a game about blowing **** up, with fights as "scenes" in an ongoing narrative, rather than as a hard-minded, serious tactical game. I can't imagine how tournament players are continuing to make this work, and I don't understand why they don't switch to a game with more serious rules, like DZC.

You can tailor it to your own requirements its not that difficult we play Maelstrom a lot with restricted force org rule set at 1500 points.

For other games we up the points and strip out a lot of the restrictions and were looking at setting a format to run a campaign style set of games probably escalating from combat patrol to full out Planet Strike.

A lot of local comps in our area have gone away from GW's apocalypse vision after 6th with the shenanigans with allies and the D spam and currently there's a lot of 40k flavors to try out from no holds barred everything in to single codex restricted no formations LOW or FW.

The key thing is to make sure that both players are getting a good game so discussing stuff as a group is a key to getting the most out 7th

[ElectricPaladin]

You can tailor it to your own requirements its not that difficult we play Maelstrom a lot with restricted force org rule set at 1500 points.

For other games we up the points and strip out a lot of the restrictions and were looking at setting a format to run a campaign style set of games probably escalating from combat patrol to full out Planet Strike.

A lot of local comps in our area have gone away from GW's apocalypse vision after 6th with the shenanigans with allies and the D spam and currently there's a lot of 40k flavors to try out from no holds barred everything in to single codex restricted no formations LOW or FW.

The key thing is to make sure that both players are getting a good game so discussing stuff as a group is a key to getting the most out 7th

Eh. I agree with the principal that this isn't really possible. If you take a borked game and alter the mix without actually unborking it, all you've done is make something else overpowered. The folks I heard that from - the Forge the Narrative Podcast - are of the opinion that this means that the best route to serious competitive play is to use everything and let the chips fall where they may; to me, it means that the best route to competitive play is to play something else. YMMV.

I have not found that restricting army choices can possibly do enough to make the game fair and balanced by itself, and I can't understand why anyone would want to do enough work to fix this game when 1) this game is reasonably fun at what it's good at and 2) there are so many other games that do serious competitive play so much better.

[SnakeChisler]

I listen the the pod cast its really interesting lots of good stuff

The missions they've designed are excellent really scale-able
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/podcasts/FTNmissionpack.pdf

I don't think anyone disagrees that 40k is unbalanced but stuff like Maelstrom with all its randomness make for a good fun evenings entertainment as long as both parties enter into the spirit of it and not get hung up on how fair anything is.

[ElectricPaladin]

I listen the the pod cast its really interesting lots of good stuff

The missions they've designed are excellent really scale-able
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/podcasts/FTNmissionpack.pdf

I don't think anyone disagrees that 40k is unbalanced but stuff like Maelstrom with all its randomness make for a good fun evenings entertainment as long as both parties enter into the spirit of it and not get hung up on how fair anything is.

Oh, yeah. 40k is great fun - that's why I keep coming back to it. It's just not a serious game anymore, if it ever was. I feel sorry for the folks who are invested as tournament players.

[ElectricPaladin]

Also, those missions are great! Thanks for the link.