Astra Militarum CP Farm: What/ Will Anything Be Done to Curb It?

If you play competitive 40k, you are familiar with the Astra Militarum CP farm, but for the uninitiated, let me explain.


It is a cheap battalion that gives you 5 CP. You will need to take an Astra Militarum warlord with Grand Strategist, and choose Kurov's Aquila as your free relic.

Then you spend 1CP on Armoury of Baal to equip the Veritas Vitae. Now you roll 1D6 per strategem used and on a 5+ "gain" a (1) CP, and you also roll a D6 per CP spent on a stratagem and on a 5+ that CP is "refunded." 

So you get to roll n+1 D6 on an n-cost stratagem and on 5s you get a CP back, and because the Veritas Vitae is worded as "gain" not "refunded" you can actually profit by one if all your dice come up 5+.

And from Kurov's Aquila you can gain CP off of your opponent's use of stratagems too.

The complaints inside the community are based on the fact that this cheap battalion (less than 200 points) is used to produce CP for tougher units from other Imperial Factions like Knights ... well, let's face it: Before Knights, nobody really was complaining. Sure BA and AC armies were using the CP battery or farm, but Knights really illustrated the power of near infinite CP being generated by a low point battalion to pump up superheavies that were designed to operate with limited CP.

So what are people looking for?

People want it to be limited but have suggested different solutions based on where they stand.

Some people are saying Guardsmen should be 5 points per model and Commanders 50 points, which I think doesn't stope the CP battery (I think people will take it until it hits around 300+ points). The point raise actually only hurts pure Astra Militarum armies, which are actually pretty cool.

This seems heavy handed to me, but I would be interested in how people got to this idea and where it is justified against other solutions.

What about limiting the CP to only 1 and the artifacts don't stack?

This seems more doable, but I think it limits the army to having only one useful artifact out of the two. I'm not sure how I feel here. I like the idea of both working, but I agree with others that there needs to be some limitation.

What about limiting the CP to the original max amount of CP the army started with?

This would stop unlimited CP from being generated and could allow the opponent to have a powerful 1st turn (if they go first) without making the Imperial player a ton of extra CP. 

That sounds good, but it also keeps the knights powered up every time you spend CP. It would slow it down though. Once again, I am not sure how I feel here.

What about limiting the Grand Strategist or VV (or both) to only gaining CP when THEIR OWN faction uses a strategem?

I think this goes in line with how non-imperial CP regeneration or generation tricks work (like Death Guard). It would mean that if the cheap guard battalion doesn't use the CP, then they don't gain CP for using the Blood Angel or Knight strategem ... I think this may be more fair. It would allow CP to be generated, but it may not allow it to go off so hard and make the Knights feel "infinite."

This is probably along the lines of a solution I would hope for because it allows the Guard to still benefit from playing pure Guard (or AM) and limits the stuff that Imperials are doing that other grand factions just cannot do.

Wow, I am way over the word limit I expected to hit. Anyway, if you have some thoughts, let's discuss them here. Maybe one of us will predict what the future will likely hold.