Sub-Factions and Allegiance Options

[NinthMusketeer]

Back in the days of yore (known as 1st edition to you young whippersnappers) sub-factions began as meta-battalions. You had to first take a normal battalion(s), then you could take a sub-faction battalion including it (with enough room for the rest of your army to go in as well). Everyone in the battalion would then get the sub-faction's benefit. Back in these days sub-factions were something you needed to build your whole list around, with many not even possible at 2000 points due to the amount of units needed simply to meet the requirements.

First with Kharadron Overlords and fully with Daughters of Khaine we moved to the modern incarnation of sub-factions; free to pick as a part of allegiance, a 'cost' of a fixed artifact and/or command trait that may be sub-par, and a small side benefit for the trouble. However the concept of sub-factions as an optional side-grade quickly vanished and today they are more or less mandatory for factions that have them. While an army can technically be run without a sub-faction they are almost always at a significant disadvantage for doing so. Additional artifacts can be gained via battalions, the current state of sub-factions has led to the command trait tables for those armies being mostly useless (since they are replaced by a mandatory trait anyways). Those, along with other elements like the customizable code for Kharadron Overlords, have been made into what I call "wallpaper"--it is there to add décor but never actually used. 

What do you think about this? Should GW abandon non-factioned forces and make sub-factions mandatory for armies that use them? Should they go further and have them work like dammed legions and free cities*? Or should sub-faction benefits be scaled back? Should a cost be added to them so that going non-faction is viable? Or maybe some other idea could work?

*For reference; Cities of Sigmar armies have about half of their allegiance abilities as universal across the whole book, but must also choose a specific city which fills in the other half of their allegiance abilities including artifacts and command traits. Slaves to Darkness have dammed legions which work the same way.

[BigNStinky]

Cost added if they keep them in their current incarnations. Taking a non-sub faction list in many armies with them available is crippling yourself and I do not trust GW to release evenly balanced sub factions without a "cost" lever to help them quickly reign it in if its over-performing (gristlegore, petrifax, hag nar etc.)

 

Yes I am aware most of the boogeymen I listed were EVENTUALLY reigned in by complete rules overhauls or nerfs but we suffered for them for months and months.

[Beliman]

Taking an existing sub faction you are already paying the chose of the first artifact and command trait. My main concern is that there isn't any mechanic to build your own (ignore KOs) without losing at least 1 ability.

Btw, I love subfactions and I really want to have more (let's go Broken Realms!!! )

Note: maybe something that can fit this post too is how an army can have a diferent Allegiance Abilities with the same subfactions (ex: SCE from Broken Realms: Morathi). I think it's refreshing and I want to see more of that.

[Nizrah]

The problem is that early it started with some form of tax. Look at the sce. There is noone sub faction that have good all 4 points. Anvils have very good CA and useless artefact, abillity and command trait etc. Problem lies that later gw realesed sub faction without drawback with all four points being good. example DoK, Fyre, OBR. 

[NinthMusketeer]

Fyreslayers pretty much get half their allegiance abilities via sub faction.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

In the two factions that I am the most familiar with, Cities of Sigmar and Legions of Nagash, the subfactions are basically mandatory. I like how it's handled in those books, though, with each subfacitons coming with their own artefact and command trait tables. Plus, for both factions there are neutral choices (Grand Host of Nagash and Hammerhal/Tempest's Eye) that don't particularly push you in any direction, so that's nice.

In other factions like OBR, where there is the choice to go without a subfaction, at the moment I think the balance between having more options and getting extra stuff for specializing is not exactly right. I think we see a similar situation with the decision of taking a battalion or not doing so. In theory, not taking a subfaction/battalion should give you access to more versatile tools, at the cost of being overall lower power in some way (extra abilites, drops...). But the extra freedom of choice is mostly not worth it at the moment.

Personally, I don't mind. Subfaction descriptions are fluff anyway. You can just reflavour them as you like if you are care a lot about your army's narrative. And it's enough form me that the option of not taking a subfaction exists for those who want it. It does not necessarily have to be as good as taking one. Besides, subfactions and battalions fulfill an important role in signposting intended playstyles for a faction. Arguably, it is better if players feel incentivized to take one over not doing so to make ir more likely they have a good play experience (i.e. the list they build actually works).

[EMMachine]

In my oppinion I would wish that the subfactions were like the cities of Sigmar, so not every subfaction has literally the same charakter (because of Command Trait and/or Artefact).

Getting rid of the "generic" faction would still be a bad thing, because not every city is Hammerhal or Anvilgard for example (what made Cities of Sigmar worse was the fixation on Aqshy and Ghyran).

I think the books would need a mechanic like with Flesh-Eater Courts, where you trait of the Delusions for the Battletrait of the Grand Court.

Basicly a set of customized Battletraits und or Command Abilities that you can't use if you play a specific subfaction.

Edited January 25, 2021 by EMMachine

[NinthMusketeer]

Just to be clear: for the purposes of this thread I am defining "sub-faction" as just being the optional choices in battletomes like SCE, OBR, Idoneth, etc. I categorize the likes of Cities of Sigmar separately; they MUST pick a free city and the allegiance is designed such that a large portion is supposed to come from that choices. Slaves to Darkness also function like this with their choice of dammed legion. LoN in general is rather dated and a bit of a mishmash of disparate concepts anyways, so also excluded here.

Of course if anyone wants to comment on these things they are welcome to, I just want to clearly communicate what I mean when I say "sub-faction".

[Cronotekk]

Subfactions should cost points. GW can already barely balance factions and the internal balance of sub-factions is always abysmal, with one or two obviously good picks and a handful of awful ones. Just make them cost points and remove the mandatory artefact and command trait

[EMMachine]

14 hours ago, Cronotekk said:

Subfactions should cost points. GW can already barely balance factions and the internal balance of sub-factions is always abysmal, with one or two obviously good picks and a handful of awful ones. Just make them cost points and remove the mandatory artefact and command trait

If you want to give points to subfactions you have to price the alliance itself as well.

It is a little of a mixed bag.

It would have the aventage that units could be balanced better when they are in multiple Alliances.

At the moment, if a unit is too strong in a alliance of subfaction often the model gets nerfed, making it worse for the other alliances where the unit wasn't too strong.

One downside I see (thats for example a point why we shouldn't have specific points for artefacts, or command traits. Because what gaming history in case of WHFB showed us is that it makes searching for the most cost effective build even worse (nearly nobody would buy an 6++ aftersave if he had to spend extra points for it. As well as nobody would have paid points fot light Armour in WHFB when you have an 6+ save after it as the only save (shields on the other hand were bought because of the parry rule).

Costing no points at gives the feeling that you can take something that is most likely not the most effective but fits your character maybe (I gave my Lord Celestant in a Sologame the Soulrage blade (even though I'm not sure if I even had the option, but my models are at least Celestial Vindicators), mostly because in my lore he has rageproblems when he is confronted with Khornefollowers after he died to a Slaughterpriest using Boiled Blood. If I use the Celestial Vindicators faction I'm forced to take the artefact what is partly bad because not it would mean that literally 20+ Chambers would have one character each with the same type of artefact.

I really think the best way would be if their would be things in the Allegiance that you don't get if you are playing a subfaction, so if would be core a correction to fit the lore instead of just more free rules.

The main problem in the end is that often stuff isn't played because of lore-reasons but instead because the stuff is better. And that way more effective stuff is played more often.

Edited January 28, 2021 by EMMachine

[Overread]

I think one has to be careful with subfactions. The more you bake them into armies and the more you make them very distinct and powerful and separate the more they take a niche, one army, and make it into fragmented sub-niches. 

Consider Skaven at present. If you back the subfactions in too much you will create players who only play Pestilens subfaction. Make it too powerful, too core and too divided and now you've a subset of your skaven players which will grow who won't be satisfied with any skaven model unless it fits their subfaction. Going forward this fragments your single army into many armies. It lowers consumer satisfaction unless GW can support not just Skaven, but each Skaven subfaction equally. 

This, thus far, has only worked for Space Marines who have had support to the point where their subfactions are now fully fledged factions with subfactions of their own and unique models. Thing is it also dominated the 40K game - one faction has as many subgroups (each with their own support) as AoS has in a single Grand Alliance. So you cut down on creative options going that pathway. 

 

None will deny the raw sales that Space Marines generate, but at the same time it has drastically lowered diversity and creativity within 40K. 

 

Thus far in AoS the only army that really followed that pattern is Cities of Sigmar and it did it backwards by thrusting multiple separate armies into a single force. Even now I'm not convinced that GW nor gamers really know the full plan of where Cities is going to go in the future. 

 

 

So my view is subfactions work when they are small additions to the army core. When they offer a bonus to a niche area so if you're building a close combat force you might take the "close combat" subfaction; but next week when you go ranged you pick a different one. I'd hate to see GW flesh out AoS into dozens of subfaction groupings with more and more power given to them, more individuality and more divergence from the army core. Right now I love that AoS has about just as many army "slots" as 40K and yet each AoS one is unique in design, asthetics, lore and models. Each one is a huge creative divergence from the others that offers freshness and variety for the game and opens up to far more people from different interest backgrounds. I would far far far rather that than an overabundance of subfactions and fragmentation within each army. 

[EMMachine]

49 minutes ago, Overread said:

So my view is subfactions work when they are small additions to the army core. When they offer a bonus to a niche area so if you're building a close combat force you might take the "close combat" subfaction; but next week when you go ranged you pick a different one. I'd hate to see GW flesh out AoS into dozens of subfaction groupings with more and more power given to them, more individuality and more divergence from the army core. Right now I love that AoS has about just as many army "slots" as 40K and yet each AoS one is unique in design, asthetics, lore and models. Each one is a huge creative divergence from the others that offers freshness and variety for the game and opens up to far more people from different interest backgrounds. I would far far far rather that than an overabundance of subfactions and fragmentation within each army. 

Their is actually another problem with the Subfactions in looking from the Lore Perspective.

We have factions were many armies are part of that subfaction and where besides named Characters most heroes and units exist multiple times (Stormcast Eternals, Cities of Sigmar). On the other hand we have other Factions where the subfactions where certain units are only included once. (A Fyreslayer Lodge normally has only one Runefather and one Runemaster in the entire lodge,  so if you play for example Vostarg, your Runefather or Runemaster is most likely a named one from official lore where but we maybe don't know all Runesons or other members of the lodge, so you maybe could have your own Fyrd inside the Lodge as long as your General is a Runeson (but nearly nobody thinks like this). Okay another way is that you have your own lodge that had ansestors from the Subfaction.

That way, you're restricting yourself by creating your own army when taking a subfaction.

[NinthMusketeer]

The Fyreslayer Lodges should be renamed something like "Clans" IMO, since the sub-factions seem to represent not just the namesake lodge but many closely affiliated descendant lodges.

[BigNStinky]

Craziest part is that sometimes the sub-faction "punishment" artifacts/command abilities are the best ones in the book anyway. Which just makes it a win win win. Give em a points cost.

[NinthMusketeer]

*cough*petrifax*cough*

[Skreech Verminking]

18 hours ago, Overread said:

1Consider Skaven at present. If you back the subfactions in too much you will create players who only play Pestilens subfaction. Make it too powerful, too core and too divided and 2)now you've a subset of your skaven players which will grow who won't be satisfied with any skaven model unless it fits their subfaction. Going forward this fragments your single army into many armies. It lowers consumer satisfaction unless GW can support not just Skaven, but each Skaven subfaction equally. 

2)Considering how much love the Skaven got in the past 20 years, it would actually be time for them to get an equal amount of updates as Stormcasts got models.

and I’m not talking about a single clan.

clearly pretty much almost the whole range needs an update

1) ps: and technically the Skaven currently don’t really have a Sub factions.

we don’t really get any boons for playing a specific clan, unless you consider exchanging clanrats and Stormvermins with other units as battleline, and being restricted to only having clan units in your army a boom, then yes

Edited January 29, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[NinthMusketeer]

Skaven have different parts of the army with their own allegiance abilities, traits, and artifacts but can draw freely between them; there is more hard synergy within a clan but more soft synergy from mixing clans. It is a brilliant design which makes both mono-clan and mixed-clan viable.

[Enoby]

10 hours ago, BigNStinky said:

Craziest part is that sometimes the sub-faction "punishment" artifacts/command abilities are the best ones in the book anyway. Which just makes it a win win win. Give em a points cost.

I agree. At the end of the day, some sub factions are a no-brainer; having an adjustable downside would help a lot. Even if they only went up to 50 to begin with (so the cost of a CP or some endless spells) it could make a difference between a list being legal or not