Hello everyone, the world’s greatest 40k player here to talk to you about double C.A.D. lists in tournaments.
So the C.A.D is basically a force org chart that you can take anything from your specific faction in. Two C.A.D.s is almost the same as double force org back in 6th but a bit better since you get to choose anything from your faction opposed to just codex’s.
Back in 6th I attended one double force org tournament (GTGT 2013) and it was relatively light on people actually using the two force orgs to its full effect. I think at the 60 man tournament there were about 4 players using/abusing it, me included, muahaha!! The Greatest 40k player in the world takes no mercy on the weak!
The reason there were so few players using double force org was due to it being a rarity to actually play it in a tournament and therefore, most folks lacked the models to do it.
Okay, so how was it? I will discuss how the games went with my abusive double force org army. Most games were just about over on turn two or three, due to my 6 Ravagers and Wraithknight bringing the pain. Also, I was using the best tactics the world has ever seen (obviously) but that’s beside the point. The point is it didn’t really matter what army I brought since I am the greatest, but it was a lot easier to overwhelm my opponents with mass shooting from my double force org. I was lucky to play against really easy going opponents that took the games lightly and didn’t get too upset when the games were over so quickly. Then I faced someone who gave up after my first turn of shooting and said that that the game had been no fun. At that point I quickly realized that yeah I was winning games, and yeah I was having fun with my crazy Dark Eldar list, but, was everyone else having fun playing against it? Would they come back to a tournament with double force org? I talked to a few of them and they said that it was fun to play in this tournament but they really did not enjoy playing against such an abusive list. Which is why I chose to hand the reigns over to Reece and lose to him in the semi-finals with his balanced one force org Space Marine list. He didn’t actually beat the greatest 40K player in the world, I just decided to lose =)
Now did a list with double force org win the tournament? No, Reece lost to a one force org Eldar list in the finals. But that is beside the point. I am not saying that a list with double C.A.D. is going to be way too overpowering. Im just saying that a lot of players going to these events come to play 40k and have fun, not to destroy every opponent they play against. The above average players will bring the top notch lists that abuse the system just like we saw at Adepticon this year. That is fun for them as they get to roll their first couple of games with an easy button and save their energy for later games. But, I guarantee that most of their opponents will not have a good time playing the games whether or not their opponent is a great guy or not. No one really enjoys getting smashed in 2-3 turns (unless we’re talking about alcohol, in which case, bring it! =P).
Some of the double CAD lists I’m thinking about right now are Daemon Factory with lots of Warp Charge which can unfortunately work in both single and double CAD. Seer Council elder which unfortunately works in both single and double, but like Daemon Factory gets even better in double CAD. 6-7 Riptides, 6 Wraithkngihts, 6 Ravagers, 6 Annihilation Barges, 4 Chapter Masters, 4 Farseers, 6 Mantacores or Wyverns, hahaha the list goes on and on. Basically think about a really points efficient unit but in double the quantity we saw them in before.
Then again there will be players that forge narratives with the double C.A.D. and will have fun at the event whether they win or lose. Some armies get a huge boost as well such as Chaos and Nids so things are not all grim dark. But this is for the other 10% that will bring the biggest, cheesiest things they can come up with in hopes to win the tournaments. Think about all the players you will be playing against and crushing in two turns. Will they come back to the tournaments? Will they go home and brag to all their friends about how they got owned at this event they paid money to go to? If these lists are the kind of lists that you would like to play against then by all means post up some comments and tell me what you guys think of Double C.A.D. Also I would love to hear about some of the crazy combos you guys can come up with using double C.A.D. but I don’t want whole lists in the comments please just crazy spam units and little combos.
Anyways thank you for reading guys and hope to hear some funny and ridiculous combos in the comments. Also I am opposed to double C.A.D. in case you couldn’t tell but am not hating on it at all, I personally love making crazy lists but I just think it is to much for the general attendee at these events.
I would love to play against six Riptides or six Wraightknights… But I’m a competitive player at heart. It’s not that much different that double FOC in sixth edition.
Yep, if a players is following the physical rules (which are for citadel miniatures, not miniatures for rules, which means wysiwyg) and makes a list, then follows the modeling and painting Book, and then follows the Fluff book (all of which are part of WH40K) then , I would be happy to play whatever they brought to the table, including lord of war, etc.
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Enforce modeling and painting, and the uber-mostest-powerfuls armies will not show up on the table top, because those players will not invest the time or the money to do so, nor will they risk that codex creep will nerf said uber-mostest-powerfuls armies.
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Allow players to use post it notes and pennies (proxy/counts as) and “Houston we have a problem.”
You think that saying models have to be painted will stop players from bringing good lists? Why is that? If you go to Adepticon you will see the most powerful lists all beautifully painted. It may prevent SOME players from going hog wild, I agree, but it won’t stop the really serious players.
It’s not hard to make a 3 color standard. I’m in the process of repainting my Grey Knights, so I stripped every power armor guy. After about an afternoon with and airbrush, all 80 of them, plus a Land Raider and five Rhinos are fully based coated with highlights and shadows and everything. A few more hours to pick out details and I hit 3 colors easily. I’m not stopping there, but if you need to, you can get fully painted very quickly.
Btw, airbrushes are awesome.
Air brushes are awesome, yes! Once you learn how to use one, you will never go back.
What air brush do you recommend? And do you use GW paints? I find I sometimes break them when cleaning it…. so ideally looking for one easy to clean
Sorry so long for response Reecius and Gordy.
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I was speaking about the game in general, not tournaments, as tournaments require many rules/things of models that pew-pew players try not to follow.
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The issue in the “wild west of 40K” is the lack of enforcement of any kind when it comes to models, which in turn allows certain players to run the newest meta week after week, and as the meta changes, so do the players proxies. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Now we can all “just not play that guy” but that does not really help the already shrinking WH40K game community.
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I think your living BAO FaQ and join-able FLGS group is a great start as a “standard” to go by. Now if more would just follow those guidelines.
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Keep up the good work!
Ah, I misunderstood you. Thanks for clarifying and thanks for the kind words, much appreciated!
All of these problems are examples of spamming, spamming anything is never fun to
play against, with single or double CAD. I’d like to eventually see a 0-2 or 0-3 comp on some of these lists just to see how creative people can be with a little imposed variety.
Hard caps on units tend to just punish old codices that lack good options rather than actually solve problems. “Only” being able to bring three of something is not actually very limiting for a lot of books.
I find that to be true, too. Armies with lots of options can get around that cap fairly easily while armies without all the options languish in comparison.
Yeah Spam is the problem for sure. But I just think that with double CAD the spamming just becomes way to much.
I agree double CAD can easily be exploited, but would double CAD be so bad if you could only take 3 of any unit in your army (2 for an HQ choice). So for the Dark Eldar only 3 Ravagers and another 3 non-Ravager Heavy choices. It would go a long way to stopping those hyper-efficient units from being abused. Are there any armies with more than 1 hyper efficient unit in the same force org slot?
I’m a Tyranid player and I like double CAD so I can actually use more in my Heavy Support slot. However, I’m not looking to abuse it by taking 18 Biovores or 6 Tyrannofex. I’d like to be able to take a shooty Tyranid list with 2 broods of 3 Biovores, 2 Exocrine, and 2 Tyrranofex.
Yeah I think that that would be a nice fix. But also really hard for a lot of the lower tier armies.
I don’t see the Nids HS slot as being the problem – it’s the Elites slot that I always find is crowded. Especially now that Zoanthropes are better as 1 per slot (more WC).
I always seem to max out HS and HQ with Nids, now.
I think double CADs are fine for regular club/basement/garage play where you can smack you buddy and stop giving him your free beer.
But it’s pretty garbage in an organized play/tournament environment
I agree it is a lot of fun to write double CAD lists, but they can be a bit much for tournament play.
Maybe those are just bad examples, but 6 WK are going to run you 1440 points, you can already run 6 wyverns (9 actually), similarly 6 riptides is too many points for most game sizes as well. 😛
Yeah I was just throwing ideas out haha didnt actually add up the points.
Yeah, 18 wyverns with double c.a.d 🙂
Yeah, that would be filthy! lol, totally overkill, though.
This article almost seems in response to MVB’s over on his Whiskey & 40k blog.
This is not a response to my post, because his example uses 3 Detachments, which would be illegal in anything we’ve considered.
Additionally, a 6 ravager army without even a Wraithknight in support (since that would be illegal) basically gets one-shot by a 6-serpent army (which doesn’t even require 2 CAD). So while it can be frustrating for some, it’s an aggressively rock paper scissors build.
Can you explain where you are getting that his six ravager and one wraithknight list is illegal?
3 Ravagers from DE1, 3 Ravagers from DE2, 1 Wraithknight from Eldar 1. That’s 3 sources (2 CAD, 1 Ally), meaning that in any 2-source event (NOVA, others like it) would be illegal.
So your basing it around a 2 source list. This information would be more helpful next time. Not all events big or small will be based around 2 source restriction, my local store doesn’t have such restrictions. So yes Frankie’s list is legal but he couldn’t take it to a 2 source restricted event.
As Chip said, the event Frankie is talking about was 2 FoC (6th ed) which meant 1 ally per primary detachment if you wanted to do it.
It would have been more helpful if he explained that he was basing it off a 2 source list building event. Just to say it is illegal is incorrect.
Frankie doesn’t read other 40K blogs, this was straight out of the Frankie Brain.
I dont actually know how to read so it is most definitely not a response to any article haha. Sorry if it seemed that way I was just thinking about Double CAD and thought I would write about it. Also the example of the tournament I was attending was a 6th ed double force one sorry for the confusion.
With the resurgence of tanks in 7th, I suspect Necrons can make some really ugly double-CAD lists.
4 royal courts, each with a veiltek and 2 stormteks. First blood all but guaranteed, and a fair whack of the opponents points gone too. Plus, those veiling cryteks (which might get back up again after your opponent guns them down) can then jump around claiming objectives now.
Fill the rest of the list with Annihilation barges and minimum size warriors in Nightscythes.
I like it!
Can’t anyone just run 6 small combined arms detachments from all different factions? Wouldn’t that be awesome somehow? Like a rainbow?
Huron
Cultists
GUO
Nurglings
Plaguebearers
Robot croissant x 2
Warboss
MegaNobz
Battlewagon
Pask
Tank
Vet Squads
Deathstrike just because
Fishmen Champion? (I don’t know Tau much)
Firewarriors
Riptide
How many points? Don’t know, but rainbows are breathtaking
Pretty sure they all need to be the same faction
The only restrictions in the rules are that Combined Arms detachments may be any faction (though the entire detachment must be of the same faction), and Allied Detachments must be a different faction than your primary detachment. THe list he posted would be legal.
The problem isn’t double CAD, the problem is spam. A double (or more) CAD allows the problem to be amplified but the problem is there regardless.
The real root issue, of course, is that the “spam” units are too good/cheap but that’s a balancing act that’s impossible to manage due to a shifting meta.
I think Troop spam is “ok”, since they’re rarely the super efficient “problem” units but they come along with their own issue in the form of dedicated transports.
I’d be even more harsh than previous comments and say restrict to 0-1 of any specific unit (excluding troops) plus moving dedicated transports into the Fast Attack section. There are still problems, of course, and unabusive themed lists would be an innocent victim but, overall, I think decent armies could be built from this. I can’t think of any real armies that would struggle with this (Inquisition, Knights, LotD and similar being exceptions).
>I can’t think of any real armies that would struggle with this
Well, aside from crippling mechanized armies as a functional idea and completely undermining the entire concept of what a dedicated transport is, you’re shooting a lot of armies in the foot pretty hard there. And if you’re allowing multiple CAD, you’re not even solving the Wave Serpent problem- two Farseers, six DA in Serpents, bam. Oh, no, a 100pt tax to continue doing exactly what I was doing.
Which mechanised army does it cripple (honest question)? AM, for example, can just take 3 different heavy sup tanks, rather than spam 3 wyverns.
Does it mean you can’t take the 3 of the “best” units? Yes, but that’s the aim, to stop spam.
My suggestion does change the “concept” of dedicated transports but the rules hardly reflect the concept anyway. Wave Serpents aren’t used to transport a dedicated unit, they are used as a cheap, fast, spammable gun platform. Moving them to fast attack seems more appropriate and solves a lot of the objective secured problems in 7th ed.
I wasn’t thinking that multiple CADs would be allowed but, even if they were, you couldn’t take 2 Farseers (0-1 by the restrictions) and DAs wouldn’t be able to take 6 Serpents because Serpents would be limited to 0-1 in Fast attack.
Don’t get me wrong, this would present extremely different armies to what is seen now but I think it would be more fun for it.
“Mechanized” generally refers to lists, as with 5E, that utilize a lot of transports for their troops. Short of using double-CAD to circumvent the restriction, your “solution” essentially prevents this except in the smallest of game. For example, a White Scars army that wants to mount all of its Tactical/Sternguard/Devastator squads in transports, as is standard fluff, simply cannot do so.
It’s not that you just can’t take three of the best thing- it’s that older codices usually only have one or two “best” things to make use of, and your restriction punishes that. How many good units are in, say, the BA codex right now? And how many are in the SM or Tau or Eldar codex? New books almost inevitably have more options and thus suffer less under such a system, which only makes their prevalence even greater.
>and solves a lot of the objective secured problems
I think you’re drastically overestimating the effect that will have. Six Wave Serpents will still shoot most things off the table, at which point the fact that “only” the 6×3 Windrider Jetbikes have Objective Secured is not really much of an issue.
>I wasn’t thinking that multiple CADs would be allowed
You specifically said that you didn’t think multiple CADs were the problem- if they’re not the problem, why ban them? And taking Farseer + Autarch or Farseer + Spiritseer or whatever isn’t really a particular punishment at all.
>because Serpents would be limited to 0-1 in Fast attack.
Okay, at this point you’re basically just rewriting the codex to remove stuff. Now, hey, I think Wave Serpents are stupid, too, but there are bunches of other units that are just as problematic. Your 0-1 restriction doesn’t actually stop Seerstar (one Farseer, one Eldrad, one Baron, one unit of Warlocks, totally legit) and there’s tons of other things that go untouched. Yes, you can add even more restrictions to fix those things… and then new problems crop up and you’ll have to think of more rules changes for them as well. You’re committing a double sin there, not only outright-changing a lot of rules of the game to suit the way you want it but also not even succeeding in your aim by doing so. 7E does need fixes, it’s true, but a fix that doesn’t actually work- or that needs more and more layers of stuff added on to do what it’s supposed to- we are better off without.
I can abide by the changes that Frontline is going with because I think they are well-targeted and reasonably effective while not upsetting the game too badly (though I wish that Invis and the psychic phase had gotten their nerfs rather than going untouched.) Your 0-1 solution is not only heavy-handed, it also needs several other even more specific changes (that entirely alter the function of a lot of units) in order to even have a chance of doing anything.
>but I think it would be more fun for it.
Certainly it would be different, but would it necessarily be better? Change for change’s sake isn’t really a positive thing. If you’re gonna convince people that suddenly they are no longer allowed to bring the units they want- because you are hitting a LOT more than just so-called “spammed” units with your changes- you need to present some kind of case that what you are doing is actually gonna improve the game.
Personally, I find the idea of having to field an army full of awkward one-offs incredibly distasteful. I don’t want to play with one Captain, one Dreadnought, one Predator, one Centurion, one Tactical squad, one Scout squad, one Attack Bike, and one Assault squad. I think that army is stupid, unthematic, and bland- it’s what happens when someone just selects a random assortment of units rather than building a cohesive army with actual fluff behind it. Now, you may differ on that- maybe you think that army is really cool and evocative, and if you do more power to you, but the point is that not everyone is going to have the same opinion on what “good” army construction is. The goal should be to, as much as is reasonable, let people bring what they want rather than forcing them into a particular box, because having your army dictated to you by someone else just isn’t fun.
So what, do the Eldar simply not deserve a dedicated transport? is that what your saying? or are you going to snap your fingers and make a new one magically appear, oh and you want us to sacrifice a fast attack choice for it….oh well I see where that’s balanced….no.
The are sure fire easy ways to kill wave serpents in 40k as they have startling weakness’s that I wont point out to you because even an Ork knows how!
Change up your tactics and work through the problem and your will start to realise that your anti-eldarism is misplaced.
Haha, pretty funny stuff, i enjoyed the article very much, cheers Frankie, made me grin after a long annoying day. I think Ravagers are possibly the nastiest choice for 6x spam, maybe trueborn in venoms, Broadsides, could also probably be pretty evil, Wyverns of course, maybe also flyrants and wraiths. Or you could just go unbound and take it all eh? 😉
4 Flyrants in Double CAD would be nasty, too!
One of the worst offenders will be a 6 Annihilation Barge Necron army. Only 540-pts so still plenty of points leftover to create a super-balanced Necron army.
I’m sure the World’s Greatest 40K Player can attest to that. 😉
6 units of dark eldar mandrakes is probably the most op thing that would come out of double CAD!!
lolz!
In 6th, nearly every winning army of a large event (5-8 games over 2 days) utilized allies of some sort. We all know of the very powerful ally combos, yet whenever anyone mentioned dropping allies from an event, they were quickly shot down stating it is 6th edition, so get over it. I know guys like myself who immediately thought allies were horribly implemented and it was painfully obvious for all of 6th. So, I adapted. One could say GW intended for us to utilize allies in nearly every army as they generally added a substantial amount to given armies.
Now, it appears many of these very same folks that made those kinds of claims are trying to reign in what folks should be allowed to play with. All I can say is that this is 7th edition and folks need to adapt. Things have ranged from banning multiple CAD, limit LoW, limit warp charges, limit Invisibility, limit the 2+ inv save w/ reroll, limit Fortifications, limit Come the Apoc allies, limit FW and I’m sure there are others.
Frankly, I’m pretty much done with larger events. It really has nothing to do with how much work a TO has put into the event. Rather, I’m extremely disappointed at how whiny the player base has become. I contend that the really good players will win regardless of what limitations are in place. These imposed limitations simply create an ‘artificial feel good’ for the average player by somehow selling them the idea that the game will be more enjoyable with said limitations. I guess getting your ass kicked by an army with limitations is somehow less of a loss than against an army that is built exactly as 7th edition allows for.
Sorry to hear that you won’t be going to nay of the big events, that is a bummer.
But, to offer a counter point to what you said here, let me ask you one, simple question. What is playing 7th edition? If you can define that clearly using the book with no limitations at all, I would like to see it.
I ask because that is really a rhetorical question. There is no such thing as “real” 7th edition with no limitations. 7th edition is a set of choices we all have to make in order to play. There is no “standard” 7th ed format.
There’s never really been a standard in any edition, for that matter. Tourneys have always altered something to some point. Players have always had the freedom to change whatever they didn’t particularly care for. 7th Edition hasn’t changed this and I don’t subscribe to the notion that suddenly there is no definition on how to play 7th edition, therefore, folks can clearly tell others they are not allowed to play with models that are 100% legal. It’s hard for me to tell someone who bought, built, ensured WYSIWYG, fully painted and 100% book legal that it’s not allowed to be played b/c it doesn’t fit into my interpretation of what is ‘proper’ to play in 40K.
For example: In 6th, folks railed against LoW creating very convoluted reasoning why it isn’t considered legal (IE: Escalation isn’t really a legal book to play). GW then put LoW in their rulebook and massively toned down D weapons and the Revenant was one of the biggest offenders. But, folks still aren’t happy with a Revenant and complain about Sonic Lances. Why? Folks aren’t going to win tourneys fielding a Revenant when a game is 1750-1850 points. The Revenant eats up too many points and MSU (yes, it will be prevalent in 7th) will run circles around it and kill the rest of the Eldar army. What it comes down to is the Revenant does not fit somebody’s ‘perception’ of how 40K should be played. I’ve played since the Rogue Trader days and the game has evolved each and every edition.
Essentially, I think there is a distinct lack among players to actually problem solve through a game and would rather just ban/restrict things. And with that, like 6th edition, I’ll end up seeing very similar styled armies dominating the scene which massively diminishes the fun factor.
On the Wave Serpent spam topic, what would be so bad about moving them to Fast Attack and just specify what units can take it as a dedicated transport? It’d be like the Land Raider then, which is heavy support unless it’s taken as a dedicated transport for Terminators.
That’d prevent people from just taking lots of empty Wave Serpents to act as fast attack (which seems to be the complaint) yet allows Eldar players to still take transports for units that need them.
Just a though I had while reading through the comments, I still haven’t gotten to play against Eldar yet.
If it’s a Fast Attack slot unit, by definition it’s not a dedicated transport. I’m not really sure what you think those words mean. Unless you mean making it available as _both_ a FA unit and a dedicated transport, but that would only make the problem worse.
In the BRB under dedicated transports it says that “some unit entries will include a transport option, letting you take a vehicle with the unit. These Dedicated Transports don’t use a slot on the FOC” (not a direct quote, check pg82).
I’m going to use Terminators since that’s the Codex I have.
“Terminators may take a Land Raider of any kind as a dedicated transport. ” (again not a direct quote, check pg 172)
So Land Raiders taken as Dedicated Transports for Terminators do not count against the Heavy Support slots of the FOC.
So the idea when applied to Wave Serpents, would be to count them as Fast Attack units. That way to use them as non-dedicated transports or fast attack units you are limited to 3. Certain units could then take them as Dedicated Transports which would force Eldar players to pay the cost of the Wave Serpent and the troops that unlocked it. Instead of getting as many as they want and only paying the cost for the transport.
1st- I really enjoyed reading this 😉 Brought a smile to my face imagining the Most Interesting 40K Player in the World.
2nd- I just don’t get the in game arguments. In a nutshell, even WITHOUT double CAD, some players are getting tabled and destroyed in opening tournament rounds by powerful lists (Seer Councls, Summoning Spam, the new IG vehicle spam, even some of the Tyranid Formations will destroy you if you don’t know what’s coming…) Why would these players be even more turned off by double CAD?
Good generals with OP lists trouncing poorly prepared opponents happens right now. Are you thinking double CAD will make more of these lists show up? Do you think the butt-kickings will be worse?
Personally, I think unlocking multiple CAD’s will lead to the marginally more one-sided games in the cases where one-sided games were already occurring. It won’t impact things like rage quitting or old stalwarts not enjoying the game (news flash- they already aren’t.)
OTOH, I think we would see more counters to Seer Spam and other lists, and allow some very interesting things from armies like CSM and ‘Nids.
Not saying you are wrong- I just instinctually go a different way with the argument.