Are Stratagems a PROBLEM for Warhammer 40K? Pros, Cons and Fixes

Let's talk about rules bloat in 40k - focusing on the stratagems...

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0:00 Intro
0:51 Positives
3:41 Criticisms
7:25 Possible Fixes

[peeledapples]

People say they like strats because they let your units use fun, fluffy and powerful abilities. Problem being that *those abilities used to be on the datasheet*

[JohnnyCoyote]

It's gotten to a point where revealing stats like of the new League of Votann guys, essentially tells you nothing about how the army will play with the hundreds of special rules and stratagems currently in play.
And with the new rules for allying in knights to imp/chaos armies there are yet more rules everyone will need to keep track of even Cross-army.

[jo_ken]

I think another issue some have with stratagems is that everyone is starting to have slightly tweaked versions of the same stratagems on top of their unique ones. Like every army seems to have an ‘Auspex Scan’ equivalent or a ‘Trans-Human Physiology’ now.

[JarlDM]

We've been playing a trimmed down version and it's drastically improved the game. Each player gets an army wide and faction wide stratagem that all units can use, and then chooses one stratagem per unit in their army. Those are the only stratagems that can be used (plus the standard ones, like insane bravery etc). We've found it makes the game much faster, more fun, and less 'let me just check real quick'.

[stevethedreamerofdreams]

I’m new to the game this year and have to say that the sheer volume of extra rules like strategems, traits, relics, abilities, litanies, chapter tactics, and so on... it’s extremely daunting and seems practically impenetrable unless I want to study this game full time 😅

It’s too much and a big turn off for a new player. No wonder they say that their focus is only on selling to new players - because surely not many stick around after trying to learn all the rules properly

[willkupronis]

My group has been doing a "command point auction" where after a cp is used you can choose to spend more cp and deny the stratagem, you then go back and forth until someone backs down. It sometimes gets ridiculous with people spending 5+ cp to ensure that a stratagem goes off.

[inkpenavengerYT]

It definitely feels like they've gone a bit overboard with the number of strats. 3-4 pages of highly situational strats for every army can really bog things down if you can't memorize them all and have to read through them all over and over at least once per phase to make sure there's nothing extra you can use. And it really feels like several armies were designed with strat use in mind and are underpowered if you don't use them or forget them. I'm especially peeved by certain wargear strats like popping smoke. Those at least should be listed on the units' pages. I actually thought smoke grenades and launchers were just gone in 9e until I found the strat.

[ArramzyChaos]

Stratagems are part of why I haven't gotten into the game itself even though I have quite a nice army because I love building and painting them. I played a beginners game in the store, and one with a friend but then getting into the more nitty gritty it quickly became overwhelming and I just went back to painting.

[nicotinepatch]

I’m really not a fan of how a lot of the stratagems have become only usable by specific units, especially in the admec codex since most are unit locked. For example The grenade stratagem is only useable by one unit in the whole codex, and that unit is the only one equitable with that weapon. Why bother making it a stratagem

[chaosjimthevoidlord]

I feel like a good fix for stratagems is to have it be like a “deck” of abilities. You have to build your deck of x amount of stratagems when you make an army list, and then you have to let your opponent know what you have before the game to avoid gotcha moments.
As for the stratagems themselves, I feel like they should mostly consist of a variety of basic universal choices, and then have a some faction specific ones for your army, which you can choose to include in your deck instead of the universal ones.
Although I did think the command re-roll stratagem should just be something everyone can do, without having to spend a slot in your deck to take.
(Example of my idea)
Say you have a deck size of 10. You would be able to choose up to 10 stratagems from the universal list, and if you wanted to you could include some faction specific ones to fill out your deck instead of the universal ones. You make this deck at the same time you make your army list, and before the game you and your opponent can see each other’s chosen stratagems, and they can just act as they do now, spending CP to use them as needed, but now you only have to keep track of what you chose for you deck, and you know what your opponent has in theirs.

[meltedwing]

I think there are many problems with strategems, but one in particular is how it heavily front loads the damage output of armies and lends to the problem if the game being essentially over by the end of turn 3 more often than not.

[liamalbiges]

I think theres too much emphasis to spend a large amount of command points quickly and agressively to do as much damage as possible as early as possible. Maybe games would last longer if there was a limit on cp spent per turn.

[alwoo]

Observing games I see everything getting bogged down as players look things up. Yes the rule set is rich with options but most of us don't have the kind of time demanded here. My old gang in college, six decades ago, played wargames with a handwritten set of rules on twenty pages. It was all gaming and friendly fun.

[Kollider]

As a strictly AoS player who just stays updated in this world, it’s ludicrous to me that there’s this many command abilities. My army specifically has an army wide one, my heroes have unit specific ones, there’s the 8 generic ones for auto run, reroll charge, +1 hit/save, battleshock immune, rally, overwatch and redeploy. And the generic realm one which is just in the rule book. All told you have plenty of options, but I legitimately think that this is like a 1/4 of faction specific ones in a book. It’s just amazing to me

[Tehstampede]

100% yes; each player explaining what each of their units does/can do to the other before the game starts takes as long as a normal turn in and of itself, and there are too many "gotcha" moments once the game has started. It would be better if there were several Core stratagems, like there are now, and then each army has like 2-5 maximum that are specific to their codex.

Special effects like Transhuman Physiology should just be an extremely expensive, always-on upgrade that you can buy for a unit instead of a GOTCHA! moment, and probably one per army list. Sisters Repentia should just always be able to fight on death; that should not be a once-per-turn stratagem.

[Lord_Wateren]

Definitely too many stratagems overall. I also hate how many of the abilities which previously were innate to a unit have been turned into stratagems (that ONLY that unit can use anyway)

[vineheart]

Way too many of them for one, and for another tons of them are literally previously baked in abilities that made the unit actually function so now the unit is severely hamstrung w/o eating constant CP.
Stratagems should have been key-timing abilities, not "burn cp for this unit every turn/phase and that unit is very strong now" - all that boils down to is that unit might as well just have a baked in cost of CP to bring and just have the abilities anyway.
Also like you mentioned with Auspex Scan, TONS of them are literally just a "Gotcha!" card as if the opponent is aware of it its never going to work, ever, and can turn the tables if it does go off. Theres a handful of strats for my orks/necrons/admech that i cant even remember what they do because they wont ever go off anyway (either because no opponent is that dumb except a new player so im not gonna punish them for lack of knowledge, or its a pathetic strat for the cost)
I'd very much be in favor of 3-5 Core stratagems and each faction gets 2-3 +1 clan/chapter specific one. None of those are tied to a specific unit either, though probably more clearly beneficial on some units than others of course.

[Tikikai]

Honestly I think putting them onto relevant data sheets would make such a massive difference for me at least. There are just so many to keep track of and when they are in an entirely separate section of the book its easy to forget whether a certain unit has any strats. When I'm looking at Battlescribe and see their stratagems I'm obviously much more likely to remember they are there and actually use them. Between this and just trimming some of the more niche ones, perhaps combining some, or just baking some into units as passive abilities, I think would be enough to really reduce the issues.

[BrewAndBiscuits]

I think it should be 1-3 stratagems, specific for each faction to give them their own feel. And then base stratagems everyone gets from the core rules like CP re-roll, overwatch etc . That to me is the best way to cut down the bloat of stratagems IMO.

I'd like to see keywords cut down too, especially for things like Feel No Pain, every army has their own name for the same thing, it should be the same name for everyone and readable on an index page in the core rules

[XVDAW]

I think a good example for how to fix the bloat is the Tau wargear stratagems.
You have a full page of stratagems, with plenty of variety and fun tricks, but to use any of them you have to take the respective wargear on a unit, removing the surprise factor, and you don't have a set limit of them, allowing for more freedom, while allowing your opponent the ability to deny them by killing the unit carrying it.