Another post on the notion of restricting army composition, to illustrate (and I’ll admit, belabor) a point:

The Combined Arms Detachment (CAD), in and of itself, is not a solution. Restricting things to a CAD is not a recipe for automatic fluffy, friendly, non-competitive fun.

Consider the following list, built off the Eldar codex:

HQs

Farseer with Singing Spear, a Jetbike, and the Spirit Stone of Anath’lan

Warlock Conclave with five Warlocks on Jetbikes

Troops

3 Windriders armed with Scatter Lasers

3 Windriders armed with Scatter Lasers

3 Windriders armed with Scatter Lasers

3 Windriders armed with Scatter Lasers

3 Windriders armed with Scatter Lasers

Fast Attack

Hornet Squadron with three Hornets, all with Pulse Lasers

Hornet Squadron with three Hornets, all with Pulse Lasers

Hornet Squadron with three Hornets, all with Pulse Lasers

Lord of War

Wraithknight with two Scatter Lasers

Spammy as all get out, not particularly fun to play against, teeming with all the things that make people complain about the Eldar – lots of S8 AP2 shooting, even more S6 shots from the scatter lasers (68 shots a turn if everyone unleashes), nasty psyker power, and a bunch of speedy, Objective Secured jetbikes. And ranged D. And this list, to be honest, probably isn’t even that optimized.

Now put yourself in the role of an event organizer, who restricted list composition to “CAD only”, when someone like this shows up?

Right?

There’s a debate in regulatory law and policy, about whether or not we should focus on creating tight laws (or in the case of 40K, rules) or flexible, principle-based rules that then need enforcement based on intent.

This also applies to gaming.

The list above is technically legal, but violates the spirit of most events trying to tone things down by going CAD only. Which means you either need to suck it up and let it slide because those are the rules, or more likely, you need to pull this player aside, and ask them not to do it again. Or take an alternate list. Or in particular dire cases, ask them not to play.

And if you were doing that, why not do that in the first place?

Yes, something like “Don’t be a jerk” and enforcing the social contract is more work than going to something like CAD only, which feels neat and clean and clear. But if you need to enforce don’t be a jerk anyway, have you accomplished anything? You did manage to ban the guy doing fun stuff with the Inquisition codex. Or hoping to field their old Wraithguard army. And Harlequins. And any number of other lists. You banned fun, fluffy lists trying to contain power, and as we can see from the list above, there are still edge cases where this fails.

Want you friendly event to be the best it can be? Put in the work and let your players know what you expect. Actively moderate lists, and be prepared to ask people to dial it down. Don’t expect an army building restriction to do it for you. We’re gamers. Our whole hobby is about trying to squeeze the most we can out of the rules. To find that little edge. Why do we expect it to be any different here?

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