40K Doctor: Fixing Stratagems
The Doctor is in and it’s time to fix up what ails stratagems.
Stratagems are an integral part of 8th Edition and one of the things that really sets it apart. They are however also a bit controversial. I think are their core most people like the idea of stratagems, but over time they’ve developed some issues. Like most ideas a little refinement could see them get a lot better. Let us take a look at some ideas for improving stratagems.
The Problems
There are a couple main complaints about stratagems. For many they are an overly complicated part of the game. In the early days we were limited to just the three stratagems in the core book and mission specific ones, it was a simple time and things worked pretty well. Once army codexes started to come out it got a bit more complicated as you started to have access to a lot more options. Now with with supplements, Vigilus rules, and Physic Awakening options, on top of soup, an army might have access to close to a 100 stratagems in any one game. This leads to a very complicated game, that is either bogged down by thinking about stratagems or simply decided by who has a better memory. This also leads to a whole host of combos, where playing the right stratagems in the right order is more important than any maneuvering, or even dice rolling at times. It also means that even if you know all your stratagems its unlikely you know all the other players as well.
The simple days…
On top of the overly complicated nature of stratagems, which is a major issue, people have been left unsatisfied with how stratagems feels. Rather than a “trick” or special move, they are a standard part of the army. Rather then being earned in any interesting or organic way they, and the CP’s to use them, are tied into army construction, further feeding the feeling that building an army is more important than playing it.
The Basic Fix
I think one basic way to fix to stratagems and make them more interesting would be to rework them into a deck. This could be a fairly basic change if you wanted it to be. Rather than having access to all of your stratagems each game players would build a deck (or hand?) of a limited number of stratagems. These would be the only ones they could use and once played the stratagem would be gone. You could not have duplicates and you would still pay a CP cost. Hands could either be hidden or visible. I would suggest players be allowed to build hands before each game, rather then during army construction and being stuck with the same hand, after all a good general might be stuck with the army they have, but could tailor their stratagems to their enemy.
OK Bob, your squad can be Veterans for this hour, but next hour Thormos’ squads gets to be the Veterans.
This would accomplish a few things. First off it would limit the number of stratagems used in any game to a reasonable amount, rather than a player having to worry about 40-100, during a game, they would have a much more manageable number to consider. Since stratagems would be limited to one use a game in this system it would also make choosing when then use them a lot more important of a choice, you couldn’t just spam the best stratagem (Veterans of the Long War, etc.) every turn to great effect. This would make them feel more like a real stratagem, a trick you pulled off once, but the enemy wont fall for it again. Overall this could be a simple change that added more tactics to the game while reining in some of the excess and bloat.
The one main issue with this idea would be pre-game stratagems that are supposed to be used on multiple units, such as Veteran Intercessors. You could simply treat them like the rest, one use only now. Alternatively you could make them their own special thing, not stratagems at all, lastly you could just exempt them from the rule, pre game stuff doesn’t go in your hand, and can be used before the game like normal.
Expanding On The Fix
If we wanted to really build on this fix we get some pretty cool ideas out of it I think. The first we would be tying the number of cards in your hand to detachments instead of a flat number for everyone. Basically this would work like CP generation does now, but with how big your hand can be. This would also allow us, if we wanted, to decouple CP generation from army building. You could tie CP generation into in game action- killing units, controlling objectives, etc, and still reward players for army building with larger hand sizes. Some characters, like Creed, could also let you have extra cards in your hand, rather than say giving extra CP.
You also have a lot of options to play with discarding stratagems. For instance you could encourage the use of stratagems on certain units by having the card not be discarded. Maybe Celestians have a special rule that if you use Blessed Bolts on them the card isn’t discarded. This would be a cool area of rules to explore. You could have a character, or power, that gets a discarded stratagem back for doing something (killing an enemy character?). You could have a stratagem that lets you get a discarded stratagem back- this would let you use a stratagem twice in one game, but it would cost extra, or a stratagem that let you swap it out for one not in your hand if needed, again giving you access to more options at an extra cost. There really a ton of ideas you could play with and build on the core idea with here.
If you kept each players hands secret you could add in another level of intrigue. While you might know all the options the enemy has in his army, you won’t know what they have available right now leading to another level of game play. This would add to the feeling of stratagems being a trick used on the enemy. I think this could be a really great way to change up the game and add something new to it – all without altering the stratagems themselves.
Let us know what you think about this fix, down in the comments!
