40k Deep Thought: Is it Time to be Down with Unbound?!
Still worried about Unbound Armies? Can you honestly think of an unbound army that can win tournaments these days?
I ask this with a straight face because when Unbound first hit the scene it was universally panned by the 40k player base – me included.
Formations were rare at one point and many of them still had the ‘taxes’ similar to a normal force organization chart. There were a couple of notable exceptions, like the Firebase Cadre, but by in large Formations were fun, powerful, and obviously pushed but still accepted by most of the players.
If we crank this article up to 88 miles per hour we’ll remember that most of us liked formations but the margin was narrow. So, most of us kinda liked formations but all of us hated Unbound armies.
Has anything changed?
There is a metaphor about boiling a frog. Hear me out…
The metaphor says that if you toss a frog in a boiling pot he will immediately jump out, realizing that the water it too hot. If you place a frog in cool water and slowly heat it up then the frog will become complacent and never realize when it’s time to jump out – eventually being boiled alive.
In this instance, we are the frogs.
We have become complacent and ultimately accepting of something we were skeptical about before – Formations. We can debate Formations until the end of time but tournaments are a good indicator as to what is ‘generally accepted’ by the player base.
I admit, I love formations for the most part and use them to my advantage. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. I will also be the first to say that Formations are the boiling water. We, as the frogs, now look around and find ourselves surrounded by boiling hot ‘tax free’ units with more free rules and points or whatever piled on for good measure.
I argue that Formations are all but Unbound in name at this point. I am making no judgements on this fact. We all know that some Formations are simply over the top. Free this and that is something we would have rejected several years ago and now we are all scrambling to build the lists or find ways to fight them.
That brings me to my actual point…
Is the game ready to accept Unbound as a viable list building strategy for use in Organized Play?
Is there an Unbound list out there at the 1850 point level that can rival the top tier tournament lists that use the most over the top Formations?
On the most recent episode of my podcast Forge The Narrative I issued a challenge to everyone to come up with the Unbound list that could match the power – on paper – to any of the top tier lists currently in in the field.
What do you think? At 1850-2000 points using Forge World and anything else available from Games Workshop is there a list out there that can take on the Gladius, ALL THE COORDINATED FIRE, Wraith Knights, War Convocation and the like? I really look forward to seeing what people come up with to prove this should still be outlawed.
Thanks for reading.
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