Reclusiam Command Squad Formation… Now With Point Costs?

Hmm… anybody else got that feeling that Games Workshop (Digital) is just making the rules up as they go?

Early this month, Games Workshop’s newest invention of Dataslate formations have been a semi-hot topic (though, admittedly, the “Escalation debate” quickly took over, and now Tyranids seem to put that one to rest as well).

Still, things keep changing, and Games Workshop’s latest digital advent calendar offering, the Reclusiam Command Squad dataslate formation, is introducing point costs to the previously “free” formations.

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#1 – Data-slate Formations

Like the digital formations before it, the Reclusiam Command Squad fits the basic pattern.

• It requires player to take a specific set of models that, so far, match an existing box of miniatures from Games Workshop. Previous data-slates covered the Christmas boxes. Here, it is the Reclusiam Box released with the latest Space Marines Codex.
• In return for taking this precise combination of models (which is a bit more specific for the Command Squad), the formation enjoys two additional special rules.

So far, so predictable.

Where the Reclusiam Command Squad differs from, say, the Tau Firebase Support Cadre or the Adeptus Astartes Storm Wing is that is isn’t “free”. Beyond having to take the specific models in just that combination, there’s also a small point-cost associated with this formation. One has to “pay” for the extra rules.

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#2 – Making it up as they Go?

I have no objections to Games Workshop introducing new things into the game, whether it’s data-slate formations, Escalation or other things. I might not like every change itself, but I’d rather have a dynamic, changing game than a static one.

That said, the Digital Editions data-slates increasingly strike as something of a beta-test “in-the-making”, and not a product released with a specific intent (beyond selling those boxes).

The Tau Firebase Support Cadre, the first formation we saw, was incredibly potent. The later Adeptus Astartes Storm Wing, in contrast, had (in it’s first iteration) apparently given now thought to how they new formation-rules interact with transports (or Space Marine Chapter Tactics). Now, half-way through the advent-calendar, the formations start getting point costs.

It’s probably not a bad idea to give formations a cost, rather than hand out special rules free. But with some formations being “free”, others costing points, and some, like the Adeptus Astartes Storm Wing, being edited “on-the-go”, I cannot help but think that nobody really though these things through before the digital advent calendar launched?

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#3 – Thoughts?

I am sorry to have kept you here for a rant like this.

Quite possibly, there are some solid ideas and systems behind the data-slates (and other recent rules-releases) that I am simply unable to see. However, the (seemingly) hodge-podge way of it all is leaving me increasingly confused.

Anyone else feeling this way about 40K this Christmas?

Z.