I've mulled over why I consider the 15 Order tactical window format hardcap inelegant and how I would have solved the issue differently. I called my solution "Tactical Garage Door", tongue-in-cheek, because it's still a limiting format, but something larger can squeeze through. Hear me out and please be constructive in your feedback :) Goals: 15 orders available turn 01 limit the core reason for cheerleading order spam in general limit the 18-20 order multi-attempt alpha strikes do not handicap factions specifically designed to play with 16+ cheaper bodies more than absolutely necessary do not make a broad range of multi-Order 2-Group playstyles completely unavailable Concept: Poor quality Irregular troopers are supposed to be a liability, not a boon of "moar cheap Orders". Troopers that are half-mad with battle frenzy (Impet/ExImpet) are supposed to be great assets but make the battle harder to control. Execution: Instead of a "15 Order generating models" Tac Window hardcap, the hardcap is on the number of Orders generated per turn, at 15. You can't have more than 15 Orders at a time (*). You are limited to two full Combat Groups. The Irregular orders in all Combat Groups are always generated at priority before the Regular ones. Impetuous Orders and Extremely Impetuous Orders have priority before Regular and Irregular orders. You can still bring your old 18-20 model list, but it will only generate 15 Orders turn 01. If you bring a spam of Irregular or Impet / Ex Impet models, they will "overwrite" your regular orders. With 8 Kuang Shi you will be left with 8 Ex Impet and 7 Regular orders at the start of Turn 01, at best. With this, taking those multi-Order spammy units like Kuang Shi, Irmandinhos or Highlanders or the cheap Irregular Specialists / Infiltrators (hello, Mr. Libertos) is a multi level trade-off you need to heavily consider. They will be Impet/ExImpet before anything else, suddenly they're not cheap and easy two-order models. The Irreg choices will still take up space in your Order pool from the Reg ones. Frenzy suddenly becomes more of a problem, because it eats not only into the model's Order format, but into the max cap of Irreg/Reg Orders per turn. Result: You either have a fully controllable, fully Regular army - which will fairly naturally even out to fewer, but better trained troopers - or you have a mish-mash of cheaper, more aggressive or less disciplined units that make the whole Roster a bit harder for you to control, but leave you with a "cushion" of "if the Irreg/Impet/ExImpet guys die, I still have the Regular Orders to generate next turn". More than 15 bodies in a list means you can use cheap bodies to defend from alpha-strikes, but they will need to be Regular if you want to fuel Rambo units. Spamming the usual suspects will make this harder for you and is another layer of a tactical choice at the roster making level. NOTE: As a result, the nominal value of a Regular is affected and might need consideration within the "formula". AVA / profiles on some problematic units will still have to be reconsidered (like 6 pts Reg Caledonian Volunteers). (*) This number is arbitrary and follows from the Tactical Window format. It would require game testing to see whether 15 or 20 Orders total in this format would be a better hardcap.
Umm... I don't think that accomplishes goal 4 or 5 at all and under those rules paying 0 points for an impetuous trooper is probably gross overprice. Even a Tanko should probably not be costlier than 10, and that completely fubars the lower points cost games.
Interesting thoughts, but the sheer amount of record keeping needed flies in the face of the “simpler” mantra for N4.
The thing a 15 Slot (not Order) System does nicely is make it a choice to include cheap stuff. Now you can't just slot in 4 Mutts and a Warcor and call it good. Strategos, NCO and Tactical Awareness are something different than another Order from a cheap body now. Any Faction or Sectorial can run 15 models with an average cost of 20 points with ease and basically no downsides. This gives the slighly more expensive troops that got outclassed by spam, like MIs or Scouts more merit. As well as a way to run more fun things and less boring but effective Rambo + Fuel setups.
Record keeping? You know which models generate what orders already, from your list. Generate Impet / ExImpet orders first. If there's space left in the [15/20 Order cap], generate Irreg Orders. If there's still space left, generate Regular ones. It's really just as simple as generating Orders normally. Expound on this, please? While writing the above I considered Rule 4 optional, intended it to limit the Irr/Reg + Impet/ExImpet order spam. Also one of the reasons I considered a 20-Order hardcap instead of 15, for example, to allow for some overflow of those Orders, just not all of them.
Now nobody will slot a Warcor, period. Great models like Foxtrot or Hardcase become waste of AVA space, who will take 3 or 4 of them now? Except those that were designed to run 18+ models and do not have great underpriced elites to carry the day? While sure, this will be the effect on most of the armies, some of them will be gimped by Tactical Window. Forced to take more expensive, less optimal choices simply because filling out that 300 pts, 15 model limit with something reasonably effective will be that much harder for them. Slot-space becomes a more valuable commodity now that it's severely limited and there's no threat of meeting another 16-20 Order list. Most lists will likely hover around 14-15 models all the time, because limiting yourself to 10 is a risk and 11-13 has always been suboptimal. This is very limiting for the game as a whole. Some cheap fireteams (4x Kazak + Frontovik for example) will be forced to take more expensive options, because the cheaper versions of them will simply force the player to take 10 more expensive models than they otherwise would. The classic HRL Frontovik + Rifles fireteam is unfeasible now at mere 62 pts. I have to take the 92 pts MSV1 AP Sniper + AP HMG + ML + Rifles one to get anywhere close to the "20-pts-per-model" range. Where I previously made "savings" and could afford 18+ bodies with those Rifles, now I can't. And then I'd like to place some Specialists. What's that, 12 pts 112? 13-14 pts Dozer? Again, suboptimal use of pts-vs-space.
Versus "you have 15 Troopers and the Orders they generate"? That's more record keeping, and quite a bit, and again, goes against the ethos for N4.
You literally go through the exact same moves at the start of your turn. How much more time does it take to find out, as you need to anyway, that your list generated 15 Regular, 3 Irregular, 3 Extremely Impetuous Orders and then set aside all 3 ExImpet, then all 3 Irreg and since you have six Orders in your hand already - 9 Regular for a total of 15? Two seconds? Come on.
No they're not and terrible example. First of all you're not forced to run a 10-5 split. Just run a 8-7, one with Link+Spares one with Spetznaz Vet Kazak, or just don't run 6-7 Order Monkeys in the Link Group, upgrade 1-4 to something better. 2nd Frontovnik Sniper or Vet Kazak instead of Line Kazak for instance. Limits are healthy if you want balance. You can't balance a matchup like Caldeonia vs Steel Phalanx in N3. You can't guarantee CC troops and anti heavy weaponry actually has somewhat worthwhile targets. With a cap on 15 the baseline becomes more expensive, so your Oniwaban isn't wading through Chainrifles, there's still a couple around he has to circumvent but after that he gets to fight a 30+ point troop that's worth the increased effort. Table layouts are impossible to manage if you have 40 Order Caledonia and a Limited Insertion Dual TAG list on both sides of the Spectrum. Everyone understands that running less than 10 Orders is suboptimal. You'll still find people claiming 10 Order lists in an environment with two full combat groups is competetive, but it's just not. If you want to have the design space to make an elite army with a lower bodycount viable, a limit of 15 slots gives you more opportunity to design elite armies, toolbox troops and inbetweeners. Atm you just always pick something that spends Orders very well and then a lot of Orders + barebones tools to support it if you want to run things optimized. Stuff like a Pheasant CoC has no place in any sort of optimal ISS list. With a 15 Order limit it does. I'm expecting the mid ranged REMs like TR Bots and MI in general to see a lot more table time now. It sure is different to play. I'm very much looking forward to tournament matchups being less table and Faction reliant and more competetive as a result. The baseline also becomes easier to manage, new Players don't have to build lists that can deal with Camo Spam, Achilles + Dart 17 Orders, 2 Combat Group 4 Mutt Haqq, the usual Dashat and Joan Deathstars - not that the last one is a great list, but it's basically a different game to play against compared to the others. I'll still slot Warcors - as long as I can flip Irregular Orders with Command Tokens I'll use them to fit another tool in I otherwise couldn't. And why wouldn't you bring Foxtrotts in USARF? Or Vanilla after I'm maxed on Chasseurs. They're Regular and I have points to upgrade with, great Cheerleader with built in Specialist and backup gunner. Points vs space is a decision now rather than a nobrainer.
Because you're actively punishing people for bringing certain types of units, those units ceases to be an asset past a certain point after which they become a liability to your success. An Impetuous unit takes up two "order slots". As you yourself wrote, one of the armies that might be designed for a high (and volatile) order count or at least has traditionally been played that way, ISS is specifically punished for bringing their high order count units. Not accidentally punished for it, but actively targeted for punishment and designed to be punished. As such, a Kuang Shi in a 300-point game would actively harm your list. Bringing several impetuous units is equivalent of playing a limited insertion list in terms of order effectiveness and that can hardly be said to "not handicap factions designed for 16+ orders" as it is the exact opposite. It is true it won't have the same volatility of a limited insertion list where one trooper dying tends to cause your opponent to snowball, but it also won't get much done. If you want a more soft cap, then you should prioritise the "good" orders, but that has the effect of taking away some of the volatility of the impetuous troopers. Not that I think that's preferable, either, simply enforcing Tactical Window is soooo much better as it isn't a convoluted way of playing that require messing with the game's core balance to work at all point levels - because if you do you might as well throw the convoluted rules out the window and mess with the game's core balance directly so that people won't want to bring too many troopers naturally.
Telling someone that they can still use their old list, but changing the rules so that doing so will result in the player probably losing, is, I think, what people call a “false choice”. This doesn’t benefit anyone.
Sorry, but can I have some of what you are smoking? Foxtrots almost perfectly fit the idea of 20pts/model/slot. Bringing 4 of them has always been and will keep being a strong approach. I don't see the issue with hardcases either, in tac window. Perhaps you should consider units like Van Zant, the Unknown Ranger, Minutemen, and Blackjacks also exist? It strikes me that you have a comfort zone as far as USF goes you dearly do not wish to leave, which as an Ariadna (all sectorials) player I don't understand.
The core idea is "you can bring more bodies and have the benefit of more rifles defending your deployment zone, as well as have the cushion of being able to lose a model here or there without immediately losing Orders", doing so at the cost of lower quality (cheaper models) and never having more than 15 Orders so there's an even playground. Let's drop #4 from Execution and just leave Irregular overriding Regular orders. If you generate Impet / ExImpet then you have it anyway, same as with the 15-slot limit of TacWindow.
Maybe this could be a better solution that the tactical windows... Put a limit in how many orders you generate per turn sound good to me. Still, as others said before isn't look "pretty" simple if we think that "be simplier means" don't count until more than 30 (code one simplification for example), because it looks like people have some issues couting until 300 (when you already have a tool which counts for you). Maybe, when we have N4 and we had played some games, we could try "some options" as house rules. I think sometimes too very competitive tournament forget about this part of the hobby. It was really fun do crazy things with the wargames, even in tournaments. Not for balance but fun.
I assure you that I am already taking Warcors in lists below the 15 order mark, and will continue to do so. It is, as you say, not bad to clock in at the max 15 orders, but whenever you have some change left over in a build that is 11-14 orders, the Warcor is still excellent value for points, supposing that they will stay the same in N4 However, I like your basic idea, but agree that having impetuous orders overwriting regulars is probably not achieving anything worthwile. This could be a fun variant for a narrative event or the like, where you want one side to have tons of models without giving them too much offensive punch.
Yeah, that's the gist of it. You want to take 20 bodies? Sure, but you won't get the OP power of 20 Orders at once. Everyone maxes out at 15. You have the benefit of staying at 15 longer than the opponent. That's tactical flexibility, as long as you can play the cheaper guys well enough for them to survive.
Actually I find this idea appealing. I think of making a non its event with something inspired by this proposition: 1. no limits on list building. 2. 1 regular order per unit up to 10 no matter the characteristics. I just wander how that would go.
I defenitely like your idea. But as FlipOwl hinted, reducing Regular Orders for Impetous ones is probably to hard. And special skills like Lieutenant L2 and Tactical Awareness should not be counted. Maybe as a little alteration you could just lose one Regular Order for every Irregular one. This is not exactly the same but could also prevent several spam-lists, with being less restrictive.