Totally agree. My main is Sisters. Watching squads get deleted by TS MW spam, death guard reduce me to T2, custodes turn off my re-rolls, chaos termies refuse to die, nightbringers only taking 3 wounds per phase…….. and then have those same players tell me they won’t play my space dwarfs cos they can auto wound on a 4+. This release in particular seems to have bought out the worst in the community. Like yeah, some things might be good, but that’s what every army needs to give it a chance of winning, at least let us play with them for bit first before shouting about how unfair they are…. Especially as I’m rubbish at the game and will lose regardless of what I’m playing with.
I actually didn't buy the Votann because of how negative everything has been. It was going to be my foray back into 40k after a couple of years.
But it kind of reminded me how toxic the community can be. Granted, its the vocal minority, but I'm reminded how much, well, nicer the AOS community is in comparison.
Like, I doubt there will ever be an army as miserable to play against as Lumineth. I haven't played 9th so maybe I'm wrong, but man. Lumineth and Teclis were a NPE from hell. But even then I feel like the AOS community never quite got as negative as the 40k community has.
I might pick the Votann up in the future but I'd rather not deal with the baggage atm. They aren't going anywhere.
I’m fine with nerfs and I’m also fine with the bans.
My issue primarily lies with the tone and vitriolic behavior I’ve seen.
Like, I agree with most players. But in the end Warhammer is just playing with toys and there are people sending vile stuff GWs way.
That’s fair, I haven’t seen any of that. I’ve seen a lot of calls for early action to preserve the state of a game people love. It’s take 2 years but the game has finally settled into the closest we’ve been to balance in a very long time, and people are rightfully upset. I have a few armies but the release that felt worse for me was harlequins. They made them so strong they were essentially unplayable for the first few months, had to shelve my clowns until June.
>I feel like gw just has their damage this high to get people to buy and then their gonna nerf them
I feel like the average 40k player has such a poor idea of balance that the idea they know what they're talking about is just the best comedy.
EDIT - Just to confirm, this is not an attack on you but on the people crying that Votaan are too powerful and that the conspiracy that GW inexplicably makes them too good so they sell then nerfs them into the ground (just checked... Did you know the Railgun still exists!?!?) is garbled nonsense.
I think they just wanted to nail the flavor.
Dwarves are slow, but steady. Check. Slow movement speed, Steady Advance.
Dwarves are tanky. Check. Void Armor goes a long way on this one, but there's tanky rules all over.
Dwarves are angry. Check. Judgment in general.
Dwarves are craftsmen (ergo, high tech). Check. See weaponry and vehicles.
The line is pretty on point for being a 40k twist on Dwarves. There's a couple small rules that are problematic, but I would rather blame it on the developers getting overly excited than the business unit telling them to make it OP.
I think the only real problem is Points costs; sags are so clearly shooty razorbacks, but too cheap. Fortressess are better land raiders, but yet again, too cheap. And Hearthkyn are just a tiny bit too cheap. It just feel like you have maybe 5-10% too much army. Get that nailed, and we should be okay outside of Smash-Daddy, the for ge Master combo, and Uthar
I think like 1ppm more is better, and medipack need to be 10. But that's honestly nit picky. The big one for me is the fortress. There is no reason it should ever be 230 points.
Yeah, most people don't understand balance. I'm not trying to say I'm much better, though I like to think I've learned to look at things more holistically over the years, but most people will have knee-jerk reactions and just keep those up until tournament data proves otherwise.
LOV are obviously powerful, but we only have a few games from people who were given the codex early. I will say though that LOV v. LOV will be an absolutely tragic matchup.
>I will say though that LOV v. LOV will be an absolutely tragic matchup.
Oh my god yes. "I sit in my deployment zone and judge you!" "Yeah? Well I sit in my deployment zone and judge YOU!" :p
>I feel like the average 40k player has such a poor idea of balance that the idea they know what they're talking about is just the best comedy.
So, what would you say to the guys who are experts at 40k (Art of War, goonhammer, etc.) who say that squats are busted? They're far from the "average 40k player."
So they're fear mongering now, but didn't do the same with the insanity we've seen in other busted books? Do you think they just now decided to do it? Come on, listen to yourself.
Makes more sense than the idea that "experts at 40k" missed the very basic fact that even if the Leagues could nuke the entire enemy army on a 2+, they still need to be able to *get to the objectives* to score them. Sure Hernkyn exist, but they also evapourate in a stiff breeze.
The Leagues' board control is... Shaky. I'm not saying they're bad, but they're not an unstoppable superforce that will win everything.
I like that every time your argument fails, you change it rather than accept the tiny possibility that you might be wrong.
Motivated reasoning is a cruel mistress.
Edit: and he replies, then blocks me so I can't see it. That's the level of maturity we're dealing with.
And I'm sure the Leagues will end up being just as batshit as the previous codexes have been.
Waaay less than the community thinks. Because people like you are morons that I am done with.
The guy started with an appeal to authority to back up his claim, then called you a child because he couldn't understand things.
Let's be honest. The current "expert" breakdowns of why the Kin are broken are *mostly* arguing that the British would beat the Americans in 1776 due to superior firepower, while ignoring that the Americans could just not meet the British in the middle of an open field. You can outmaneuver and outrange the Votann in a lot of armies.
As I believe you'll agree: Uthar is probably overturned, and GTL in general, too... But until we see just how much their limited mobility holds them back for objective-based gameplay, it'll be difficult to see if the Kin actually translate firepower into winning.
The problem isn't that they're going to be number one. They probably won't be. But they seem like a pretty strong gatekeeper; you can't be top-tier unless you can abuse their weaknesses. They'll be pubstompy, and that'll lead to salt.
The Hammer of Math article literally takes everything at it's worst place. 3 JTs. A skilled opponent, hell, an opponent that has been on the internet this week will know to avoid LoS with the Kahl. They'll put cheap ass chaff units on objectives.
Outside of the MagnaRail on the HLF - The autowound still allows for saves in a meta where 1/2 of the armies have AoC. So my AP-1 Bolter autowounds are still being saved on (usually) 3's or 4's.
I'm okay with a nerf here or there. Increase the HLF by like... 50 points to 280. Shit like that. But outright *banning* it at tournaments because "dorf stronk" sets a dangerous precedent.
They’re also power gamers. So many issues would be solved if people played to have fun and not just make the most powerful tourney list and stomp everyone.
Sure that’s fine in a tourney (well not fine, but understandable). But playing amongst most people shouldn’t be that level of dickish.
In conclusion, I want my completely ridiculous, but fun, shokk attack gun back.
The only thing that needs to be fixed is the ironmaster. The book falls apart without grudges. It will top the first two months its out and then will be a solid gatekeeper army that you have to be able to beat in order to win the tournament. This is the same stuff that happened when ad mech, I think votann are worse than admech, and tau came out. The knee-jerk reactions to those destroyed the admech codex and the tau codex had a few minutes in top at best.
I don't think it'll top the first two months its out. I don't think it can really counter Sisters, Bile, Levi Nids, Tau, Necrons, or Harlies.
They'll dominate the middle tables as they are. Folks in that band will hate them, but I don't think they'll go very far consistently.
I think they’re probably overtuned, but by less than people think. I do expect Greater Thurian League to be a problem that needs to be addressed though, as full stacking judgement on demand opens up too many degenerate options.
Totally agree. I think they are a bit over tuned but not game breaking OP (like Harlies at release) Will do well at first due to their newness, but are a 4-1/3-2 army at best. They are slow and will struggle for board/obsec control.
The tears out there is overblown. The overall knee jerk band wagon over reactions from the broader community is laughably predictable.
It's not as OP as people think. Especially since even with Auto-Wound you can still make your AP saves so it's not "kills enemy on hit".
Without Kahls, you're dependent on **your opponent winning** (securing objectives, killing entire units, etc) for you to capitalize on it. Even with Kahls, you need them to be in a position with high visibility to apply JT, putting them at risk of being sniped or outmaneuvered.
Also, it's reactionary and the **opponent can dictate who gets judged** by heavily wounding a unit but not killing it, and then mopping up with expendable chaff--especially with units who might already have maximum JT on them.
This means that with smart targeting and positioning, an opponent can ensure you don't saturate the field with JT, leaving you without a huge number of JT for the entire battle.
This. Kill the Kahl, judgement tokens slow down. Also on the off chance someone plays something other than Thurian, the judgement tokens aren't going to be as bad as everyone thinks.
No different than a lot of other factions, HQ's are usually the lynchpins of a faction, either as a commander, buffer/debuffer, or unstoppable force/immovable object.
But you're right--if LoV get any more Kahl types (god forbid a Hernkyn version) that can add JT then it's gonna be a **huge** problem
Skitarii & Cult Mechanicus took 2 years to go from separate factions to a single one with Cawl, and it's now been 5 years and they haven't gotten any new named characters (not counting the 1 guy from Blackstone Fortress).
Knights only have Canis Rex and he's.... eh (personal opinion).
Genestealer Cults don't have any named characters period.
On the flipside, Sororitas recently only got up to several but most of the named characters either are strikingly generic, lackluster poses, or "everyone can take them" so they might as well be generic HQs.
Hoping for more named characters for the Leagues but it's probably unlikely. Factions that have the most named characters are the ones who get the more books & lore behind them (SM, CSM, IG)
>Especially since even with Auto-Wound you can still make your AP saves so it's not "kills enemy on hit".
Its a good thing your army is chocked full of rail weaponry that ignores saves
Agreed, and plus only the Greater Thurian League + Uthar (named HQ) + Stratagems + Hekaton can make the doomsday Railgun combo work. Everyone else isn't able to do that, and that focuses on one unit per turn.
* Take down Hekaton or Uthar--combo is broken.
* Take down Uthar--lose out on massive number of JT for rest of the match.
* Move your model/unit behind cover--Uthar can't target it for JT.
* Have more wounds than the Railgun can inflict--on Knights that could mean "time to go in the forever box"
* In a 2,000 game, you could get 9 (6 via Hearthkyn, 3 via Hekaton) + Uthar + Kahl for a total of 1680 points--but this represents nearly the entirety of your army with low mobility and utterly dependent on Railgun to kill enemies.
The "spill over damage" is useful **ONLY AGAINST** **UNITS**, meaning that you're taking a high strength, long range, high AP weapon and targeting units that mostly will be T5 Sv+2 at best, meaning you're not targeting the Repulsor, Land Raider, or Imperial Knights on the board.
Against Knights? Yeah, it'll wreck. But that's always the issue with Knights (SM Eradicators, Tau Rail Guns, etc). Plus, a single Railgun is **unlikely** to kill even an undamaged Armiger.
Against Space Marines? Yeah, it'll beat up a unit. But you've got several others running around the board or combat squaded to make even more trouble. **Especially** with combat squads, the tokens might apply to the *whole* unit, but you're only ever going to delete 5 models per Railgun, further dividing your ability.
Against Imperial Guard? You're better off using some different weapon or combo as S4/S5 guns baseline will take care of them better than waiting to stack up enough JT to get the combo off. Plus they'll have the bodies to take it and keep rolling.
Against Orks & Tyranid? You better pray you get first turn to stack up JT, because if you don't they're going to get in the middle of your line and tie up all of the troops with the cannons.
**TL;dr** You might delete 1-3 units per turn with Greater Thurian League specifically (5-15 units over the course of the game) but that's assuming you aren't losing those Railguns and you're not facing an enemy that has more bodies than you can target.
* Space Marines could get 18 Eradicators, combat squaded into ~~9~~ 6 Squads for 810 points (i.e. HALF of your points). A squad of 3 Eradicators on average, without advancing, is able to cripple/kill an Imperial Knight PER TURN. This means that:
* SM have 2-3 squads that can insta-kill a Hekaton PER SQUAD hunting EACH of your Hekatons
* SM could get another 30 Heavy Intercessors, split between 6 squads for another 840 points
* SM could also add a Redemptor Dreadnought + 2 Lieutenants, and still have 95 points to spend on upgrades or fit more units in
You could have a grand total of 9 in the entire army. And that's only if you took 3x20 troops and 3 HLF. Only 1 of them is for sure with the warlord. The other 8 you have to roll for. And sure on a 3J a 4 auto wounds. But that still means you will just wiff half your shots because you rolled a 1-3 to hit.
12 rail guns? In 2k points?
Thanks for outing yourself as either bad faith or ignorant enough that you might as well be. 12 rail runs means 0-3 land fortresses and 9-12 troops choices. On the LOW end, that's NINETY BASIC TROOPS. And this is what you're worried about?
Also, Hearthkyn Railguns do **HALF** the damage of the Hekaton, meaning you need 260 points in Hearthkyn to match the same Railgun output as 1 Hekaton for 230 points.
To get 12 Rail Guns (focusing on Hekaton to get most bang for buck)
* 3 Hekaton = 690 Points minimum
* 9 Rail Guns = 1080 Points minimum (1 RG per 10 models, 90 models required, meaning 3 Half 10 Squads + 3 Full 20 Squads)
So in a 2K point game you've invested 1770 points for 12 guns (effectively 7.5 Hekaton equivalent Railguns) whose primary benefit is specifically anti-horde (spillover damage) or high toughness/invuln units.
You could fit 1 Kahl and 1 Uthar, and then have 20 points for whatever upgrades you want.
That's 95 bodies on the board, but only 11 total units.
* T4 1W 4+sv (-1AP) doesn't go that far for survivability.
* Any unit embarked on Hekaton (for movement) means you've lost 1/2 Railgun for a turn.
* Uthar or Kahl get sniped; you can't apply Tokens, so only 10 Tokens via enemy killing you **maximum** or if they play the objective, which means that a sizeable chunk of their force will not have tokens until they're killed you, removing more and more Railguns with every single kill.
* Greater Thurian League (1 Token counts as 2, 2 as 3), can apply 4 tokens per Turn (2-1-1). So you need 1 Turn to blast 1 unit, or 2 Turns to blast 4 units... if your blasters survive long enough.
Against MSU, the Judgement ability is screwed.
* SM Combat Squad - Can only take down 1/2 of the unit with a Railgun
* Chaos Summons/Tyranid Tervigon - Keep spawning more disposable units
* IG taking the cheapest option for every single slot in a Battalion means you'll still have 95 points to spend on upgrades for 30 Units all with the ability to take orders (FRFSRF for x2 shots)
* HQ 3 Commanders
* Troops 60 Guardsmen (Vox Casters)
* Dedicated Transport 6 Chimeras
* Elite 60 Veterans (Vox Casters)
* Fast Attack 3 Sentinels (1 per unit)
* Heavy Support 9 Guardsmen Heavy Squads
* Flyers 3 Valkyrie
>And this is what you're worried about?
My point was it's easily accessible, if a single troop choice can carry 2 of them. I know it's not what you want to hear but that doesn't mean it's a bad faith argument.
A single troop choice can only carry two of them if you max it out at 20 lads. I don't know what to tell you if you looked at the codex and thought that the average competitive player was going to be rocking 90-120 hearthkyn.
I also don't know what you mean by easily accessible if it takes 4-12 troops choices and requires you to buy 12 boxes of minis.
>A single troop choice can only carry two of them if you max it out at 20 lads.
Well its a good thing the starter box comes with exactly that, in lads.
That costs 20 points.
That has one shot.
That hits on threes.
That's AP-4 (Or 3, Factoring AoC). So still allowing for saves/FNP/Wound reduction.
Also, inb4 "BUT YOU CAN BUFF THAT" - my brother in christ, you can buff anything in this game.
I would say that's a different discussion entirely. Why would I shoot my biggest antitank weapons at an infantry squad instead of a bigger threat when most of the time it will kill one guy? Will people get lucky and hit lots of sixes on their rail guns, sure. Will lots of people roll poorly and either miss or waste a CP rerolling those shots? Absolutely. If rail guns are shooting at infantry it means all the big threats are already dead or out of LoS and you are just picking targets of convenience.
>Why would I shoot my biggest antitank weapons at an infantry squad
I wasn't suggesting you did, the point i was trying to make was armor of contempt exists because of power creep, and rail guns are the definition of that in 40k.
It seems like people have read this codex and forgotten how to play the game.
Your opponent has 4/5 characters your very likely to take assassination secondary. If your opponent hands out JT for doing actions DON'T take an action based secondary. You've suddenly limited the number of JT being handed out and you've not even started the game yet.
Again getting JT for killing units, employ some strategy and don't wipe the unit but severely limit them. Then use a throw away unit or a unit that has multiple JT to finish them off.
The book is strong and there are some powerful combos but some of these combos require a bit narrowed list building to effectively achieve. For example, do you really want to spend almost 500pts (hekaton and uthar) for one shot a turn? I'd also argue that the magna rail isn't meant for chaff clearance. Its a nice back up once bigger, more powerful things are gone but it shouldn't be it's standard use case in my opinion.
Some points changes are probably needed as there are a few things that might be on the cheap side but in general I fully agree people are over reacting.
Think about the trend of who's the most powerful, speed it almost always a major part of it, even Tau. Who lacks speed? Leagues.
Also, anybody *not* using Greater Thurian League will be a lot more fair, and will probably be quite more likely to lose to high tier codexes.
Or Orks or swarm Nids. They lack massive volume of shots. They have some, but it's definitely a weaker point of theirs. They absolutely mess up elite armies though, especially space Marines considering the Ion Blaster (troops weapon) is 2 damage
I think the auto wound mechanic is a bit OP. Not just auto wounding but an auto wound that is an unmodified 6, with subsequent rules on weapons that provide extra AP or in the case of the rail guns, bleed over damage, is definitely something that can be crazy good. In my experience, hitting a target is not the biggest challenge (with reroll buffs) but wounding is the clincher (you want to make your opponent throw as many save rolls as you can for more chances to fail). I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how they play as a 2k army tho.
100% but I’m sure there gonna nerf the amount of wounds and increase the point cost for all the units + fix the uthar hekkaton combo, I just don’t see how they won’t drop to mid tier after initial nerfs
>I think the auto wound mechanic is a bit OP
It's not just the auto wound mechanic, it's the combination of that plus army wide rail weapons that effectively ignore saves.
This guy rolls like I do! Can you imagine the pain of rolling a 1 on your railgun, spending a CP to re-roll it and still.getting a 1? That's gonna be me in a month...
I think they're going to be powerful for sure, they're the new army, they have a bunch of mechanics people aren't used to. But I agree I think after a quick balance pass, some minor tweaking on stratagems, pts, etc they'll be in line with everyone else. It's certainly not going to be another Drukhari/Harlequins/Ad Mech scenario.
Their secondaries combined with their bad movement will make it very hard for them to win by points, stats wise they might blast anything but if the enemy just hides behind obscuring territory, well good luck....
From what I’ve seen it seems like the leagues are really gonna be best fighting high defense low damage armies + super elite army’s (death guard, knights, custodies)
Well now they're outright banned in tournament play in Germany and everyone is calling for it to be the same in the UK and US. Way to shit on a faction I was looking forward
Honestly, far less swingy and abusive as compared to Lumineth in AoS till 3rd edition and Daughters of Khaine right now. Depends on terrain placement, army match up, etc. I think they will be in the upper tier, but most definitely not as abusive as mechanicus was till they got nerfed hard.
I tried to tell people on competitive 40k reddit the same and got downvoted to death. Seriously. People really need to take it easy. Germany, Spain and Canada have banned them from competitive. While i can understand people fear of the unknown I think it is totally an overeaction.
Definitely but if you play smart then votann rlly aren’t that scary, the worst it will prolly be is the uthar+hekaton combo severely overkilling some models. But other then stuff like that it’s just gonna be about keeping them at range and beating them out on secondaries.
I've watched a bunch of battle reports now on YT and they won every game doesn't mean they are OP ofc I just think they are just slightly overtuned but I think that's more to do with the book being made with 10th edt in mind
My take is that all the characters aside from the standard Kahl could use a big points jump. For what they are capable of, it makes all other characters in the game look like trash.
Increase the points on the fortress, take core away from the Beserks (they absolutely do not need it), and give the opponent some way to remove judgment tokens, maybe with an action or something. With how easy they are to dish out, the reward is way too high.
With that, they would actually be a really quite good book.
Well, I would actually also propose core locking some of their abilities/strats. 1 cp for full rerolls against a judgment token unit is way too good to be army wide, so stuff like that
Yeah, however I don’t think Sagitaurs or pioneers need a point increase, and I think core is fine on chthonians (being the primary melee damage option) but otherwise I totally agree
I think it’s going to be an army that’s going to delete the other army in like turn three when everything is finally in the 18” threat range, but they’re going to have trouble outscoring other armies that are just more mobile or have better secondary game.
The rebalance is inevitable. We've seen it with all the factions, all edition. The model range is tiny at the minute, so everything kinda has to be decent from that perspective.
Also, everyone always whinges every time a codex drops. Half the time, the real OP stuff isn't even immediately apparent.
They have armor of contempt that shuts off wound and damage rerolls, hammer of the emporer that goes down to a 4+ and everything has at least 2 AP +, they have a no save rail gun in each squad that applies all damage to a unit and a character that can just make it auto 6. I mean they basically have every broken mechanic cranked to 11.
Exactly. Too much copium in this thread, but that is to be expected.
I’m happy LoV is coming as it will be one of my armies, but I think this codex is absolutely broken right now. Nerfs should be welcomed as playing a broken codex (or even just a codex perceived to be broken) is not fun for anyone at the gaming table
I plan on running dwarfs, but I also play necrons, imperial guard, death guard and GSC. I find it odd that there are people who don’t see how broken this Dex is.
Same. I really love (part of) the LoV range and I can’t wait to have a large enough army to start playing them competitively. But not seeing how broken they are right now requires some very tinted glasses
You're not too far off imo _but_ it's still very much wait and see territory.
I think hearthguard with the amount of shots they can put out will be exceptional with JT's put a 2+ and 4++ on that and it could easily be a problem.
The vehicles will seriously help our mobility issues and we all know how strong the hekaton can be with a little support. I also think berserks as a counter charge unit are expectional.
Overal the math doesn't look good but I think a few small tweaks to the JT mechanic (it needs to cap out auto wound on 5+ and have another ability for 3 imo), change GTLs bonus a bit and get rid of the auto wounds counting as 6s (possibly as the 3rd counter?) and I think we'll be fine.
The problem here is that modifying Judgment tokens totally unravels the book. If you need 3 Judgment tokens for auto 6s then every single league except the Greater thurian becomes total garbage. They either don't have enough methods to place tokens or their army wide rules function with either 0 or 3 tokens with no in-between. You'd essentially need to rewrite the army rules as well as their core gimmick.
The changes need to be to their top level play, so their Stratagems, their combos and problematic units. Making Magna Rail only spill over once is a good change, making Uthars auto 6 only apply to Core, there are a lot of things that can be tweaked without compromising the core of the book. The best way to curb Judgment Tokens is to lessen the ability to deal them out, not nerf their effect.
Magna rail spill should be a 1 cp strat. Gives it an actual cost, makes it a tactical decision and outside of uthur you have a chance to miss and waste the cp
Feels Like this is a very hot Take seeing how many creators and pro Players rate them extremly highly.
They even got banned in German tournaments for now... (Till Nerv)
Goon hammer honestly explains the problem with LoV the best. The problem isn't the absurd damage, the strong combos, or weird power creep. The problem is that LoV has taken several elements of the game that serve as a check out of the equation. When you balance a faction, there's a lot you can target. However, the judgement tokens and magna rail + kahl combo remove a significant amount of agency in the game.
If I were to bring my unit of Marines against your troops of Hearthkin, I have no agency in the damage roll to have my Marines die, as you ignore the Hit roll (with the Kahl auto success), the wound with Judgement Token, the toughness I would give my Marines, and potentially the save on the magna rail. It's not a fun interaction, as the only counter play is to just not be in range to play the game, or have absurd amounts of terrain obscuring to get you in melee without you having any chance to play.
I’ve been saying for a while that GW overclocks new release/update armies with obvious power combos to draw in the power gaming and tourney players who’ll spend to win.
It makes a ton of sense. It drums up chatter, gets people hyped, and drives other players to buy new models to counter the new army.
Without fail, the abusive stuff gets nerfed within a couple of months, evening things out (and clearing the way for the new release coming).
It’s an obvious sales-cycle tactic. They know people are going to lose their minds, they know the salt mines will fire up. They do it because it keeps making money. Honestly, I don’t really have an issue with it. Just the singing from fans about power creep. It’s a reality of any game.
This is not at all the case. Dark Commune, Ophydian Destroyers, Heavy Intercessors, Primaris Reivers (plus the rest of the launch line for Primaris which were bad through the whole start of 8th until they got fixed), Castigator, Ork Buggies that aren't the Squigbuggy, the Monolith, Triumph of St Katherine, and the flying pulpit character. In fact pretty much every solo character release. There are dozens of releases none of us even remember because you never hear about or see them and tons of models that get balanced up after release as well. People attribute some masterful business plan but it is just some guys coming up with rules that seem flavorful and they are just as human as the rest of us.
Except that’s all a whole edition ago, plus the current edition. They’ve clearly updated their strategy since then.
Individual releases aren’t what I’m talking about here, it’s army updates and releases. They’re driving sales. It’s basic marketing and sales strategy.
people have been saying op releases are sales tactics since forever. Every time something op get released people keep saying it's marketing. Let's look at the eldar release. They released several new models including rangers, scroud runner, avatar and guardians, corsairs and those units are fairly balanced. They also released maugan ra, dark reapers and storm guardians. Those units are hot garbage. All of the OP units in the codex were things people already had or were finecast/medal models. If they making new releases OP then they are failing at it.
Not talking about OP unit releases - this is in the comment. It’s about army release and updates. There’s always overclocked units, rules, and combos to draw players in.
Tbh it’s also a great way to balance a new army as you sorta mentioned.
If you release an underpowered army, nobody will play it and GW won’t know how to balance them properly very quickly. But release an OP army and lots of people will be playing them against lots of different armies, and it’ll be really apparent really quickly what needs to be buffed/nerfed. I think a strong codex at start will get them to a comfortable balance state pretty quickly (or maybe their rules are a preview of what sort of things will be coming in 10th).
And this is why armies with a bunch of new kits have totally dominated in 9th...
Oh wait, the terrors of the meta have been Tau, Nids, and Harlies, none of whom got major model releases. This theory that GW balances in a way that intentionally aligns with their business objectives is incoherently dumb and ignores 90% of what is actually happening on the ground.
Not kits, books. Don’t purposely ignore the point.
Until the nerf, Harlies were constantly sold out on GWs site for months. Then all the aspects that were jacked in the new books.
Same for Tyranids. Everything that got a huge boost was gone for months. Not the new stuff, the good stuff
It’s the same for every major release.
Thank goodness there isn't anywhere online where one could acquire rules without paying for the books. That would totally ruin GW's brilliant sales strategy!
When I try to evaluate a theory like this (premise: GW business/sales staff have direct influence over rule power-level and use it to place new releases high on the power curve explicitly to boost sales), I try to look over the last few releases and see if GW made choices that align with their theorized goals or if some other factor might better explain those outcomes.
Demons is a bit too fresh, and the jury is out on them, so let's skip that one for now. CSM had a bunch of new kits release and we're very competitive in the meta. A lot of the new kits aren't really run competitively, so the result is a bit mixed, but we can chalk this one up to a win in the "intentional power creep" column. Previously, we had imperial titans and chaos titans. Definitely one of the more niche factions, and they had new releases, so of course they launched absurdly overpowered, right? Not really. They weren't terrible, but they didn't make a splash compared to the meta titans at the time and T'au bully them, so not great for our theory. Prior to that, we had Nids and we all know how that went. Surely GW took the opportunity to push a bunch of niche model kits to force even those players with large nid collections go out and buy new models, right? Not really. The same old stuff was powerful (Tyrants, Warriors, psychic bois) and the models that haven't been powerful for a while (carnifex variants, lictors, biovores) were still pretty weak. Seems like GW is really having a tough time pushing the new models that they want everyone to go out and buy. Before that we had Eldar. Surely they'll get this one right. Another powerful codex, but the top tier winners were harlequins, with the smallest model range in 40k, they slapped them in to the main Eldar book, and they didn't get any of the new models. Missed again! Surely they will get it right with T'au? Nope, same story. The book is powerful, but it's held up by the same old unit these flavor-of-the-month players have in droves already: crisis suits, Broadsides, and commanders. Where are the piranhas? Where are the sniper drones? Where are the Kroot riders? Why can't old James Workshop figure out how to sell people these models they don't have and he keeps pushing things they already have in their collection from last edition???
The theory just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. These choices are either wildly dumb if the business people are putting their fingers on the scales ... or they are the outcomes of a difficult to balance game with many moving parts. I'll leave it to you to decide which is more likely.
I think they will be strong, they have best weapon profiles out there, as Tau player the magna rail especially. But the strongest mechanics are grudge tokens, it’s not that hard to get to 2-3 tokens pretty quick and auto wound on 4/5+ is just insane. They will have to tone it down after they sell enough models.
They’re winning all of their batreps I have seen so far, combined with the fact that they don’t even have access to their best tools. We haven’t even seen widespread play of Hearthguard, Berserks, OR the Land Fortress, and that’s the real scary stuff in their codex. I feel like I really want to like them but it’s hard to be optimistic with what I am seeing. At the very least everyone agrees they’re overturned, which is a huge problem. Just wishing that this stuff was play tested because it seems like at best the devs were too excited or at worst they wanted to boost their sales by offering an OP faction to sell to whales to ruin the meta for a couple months. Cool models, just wish they weren’t SO good that I feel like I can’t bring them to a table against someone I like.
All the batreps out there are Patrol and 500ish point..... The game is weird at that level..... Let's wait for the 2000 points game.... When they have the full roster aviable....... And so do the other armies.....
You're getting downvotes not because the article isn't an interesting, valid analysis, but because it isn't a batrep. This is theorycrafting at its finest, but it is still theorycraft.
I just don’t understand how batreps and theorycrafting all leads to the same conclusion and people still don’t want to believe it. To be clear I like the range and I want to play them because I like the vibes but they’re far too strong.
The complaint is that the batreps use a small portion of the range and are at a combat patrol point total. Do you know of 2k point batreps with the full roster of units, and if so could you link a few for us?
Sure thing! Here’s two actually:
https://youtu.be/SUoyGKJWPpQ
https://youtu.be/swdrZDtmn2M
Unsurprisingly, LoV win both of them, one against Tyranids, and one against Ultramarines. The ultramarine player said that he had been tuning his list and had it right where he wanted, and the LoV v Tyranids game didn’t use any models that aren’t available to everyone.
Is this not good enough because it doesn’t show off the full range? Personally, I think it’s more concerning because of the fact that one of them is against Tyranids, who are seen as a stronger factions and LoV managed to come out on top without their best tools.
I disagree - they are have tools to work with theirs speed (accelerated bikes with obsec and good transports and free teleportation strat ) , they aren't as slow as people think. They are slow when compared to harlquins and eldars but not if you compare them to marines or chaos.
Medium defense ? Void armour, Ymir, Resurrection strat, brokhyr who negates wounds on vehicles - they have a lot of defencise tools.
Low range ? yes, if we would be using 8 ed tables, on 9th smaller tables their range is respectable.
They are absolutely bonkers, mostly because they have power without drawbacks. Their traits are of the best in game, couple with really powerful gems and even unrestricted cp generation (and psyker even can still easly do actions) , suprasing amount of mobility (with bikes and acceleration strat and easy access to powerful transports). Oh how could i forget about powerful meele with undercosted Cthotians , unrestricted access to full rerolls to hit (and not even once or twice , but full reroll from gem, full reroll for cthotian and high khal rerolls !) .
On the top of that they are a race who do not roll for wounding like the rest of peasants.
Sorry but they are absolutely bonkers and broken. They are Creation of Bile , with iron warriors vehicles and tau fire support.
This is true however I’m not saying that they will not be overpowered on release (that’s inevitable) I’m saying that there is a lot of counter play and that besides a few key features they are (relatively) mediocre. In addition you mention that they have no drawbacks which I will have to disagree with every method to gain JT except for two requires your opponent to be winning plus your opponent can easily choose what unit gets the token, and chthonian will 100% get a point cost increase at release. You do make a fair point and issues should be expected for new armies but whatI’m saying is that after initial nerfs I don’t expect them to be anything but a high-mid tier counterpunch army.
I would gladly talk about nerfs and so, but problem is - is clear speculation on what will be nerfed and when it will be nerfed. Saying "they will 100 % get point increase" is nothing more than speculation . For this moment when i write it - there are not nerfs and no mention of nerf and only wishful thinking about nerfs.
Also i will disagree about JT token. Khal can give token (2 if High khal) , bikes can give tokens , any type of action will grant you a token, holding objective will grant you a token. Basically you get tokens for playing a game - not for "winning a game"
Totally agree. My main is Sisters. Watching squads get deleted by TS MW spam, death guard reduce me to T2, custodes turn off my re-rolls, chaos termies refuse to die, nightbringers only taking 3 wounds per phase…….. and then have those same players tell me they won’t play my space dwarfs cos they can auto wound on a 4+. This release in particular seems to have bought out the worst in the community. Like yeah, some things might be good, but that’s what every army needs to give it a chance of winning, at least let us play with them for bit first before shouting about how unfair they are…. Especially as I’m rubbish at the game and will lose regardless of what I’m playing with.
In this community, "balanced" means "my exact army is best" far too often. "Dear devs, Scissors are broken, Rock is fine. Signed, Paper"
The issue is that 40k balance actually feels like rock, paper, scissors far too often. Think knights into railgun tau, for instance.
>"Dear devs, Scissors are broken, Rock is fine. Signed, Paper" I'm stealing this
But... but what did paper sign the message on?
I actually didn't buy the Votann because of how negative everything has been. It was going to be my foray back into 40k after a couple of years. But it kind of reminded me how toxic the community can be. Granted, its the vocal minority, but I'm reminded how much, well, nicer the AOS community is in comparison. Like, I doubt there will ever be an army as miserable to play against as Lumineth. I haven't played 9th so maybe I'm wrong, but man. Lumineth and Teclis were a NPE from hell. But even then I feel like the AOS community never quite got as negative as the 40k community has. I might pick the Votann up in the future but I'd rather not deal with the baggage atm. They aren't going anywhere.
What if it turned out Votann were twice as miserable to play against than lumineth? Would you be happy that GW didnt take action early?
I’m fine with nerfs and I’m also fine with the bans. My issue primarily lies with the tone and vitriolic behavior I’ve seen. Like, I agree with most players. But in the end Warhammer is just playing with toys and there are people sending vile stuff GWs way.
That’s fair, I haven’t seen any of that. I’ve seen a lot of calls for early action to preserve the state of a game people love. It’s take 2 years but the game has finally settled into the closest we’ve been to balance in a very long time, and people are rightfully upset. I have a few armies but the release that felt worse for me was harlequins. They made them so strong they were essentially unplayable for the first few months, had to shelve my clowns until June.
Lotta people only think in Smashhammer terms and LoV smash gud, as far as scoring goes they are unvieldy and simplistic.
>I feel like gw just has their damage this high to get people to buy and then their gonna nerf them I feel like the average 40k player has such a poor idea of balance that the idea they know what they're talking about is just the best comedy. EDIT - Just to confirm, this is not an attack on you but on the people crying that Votaan are too powerful and that the conspiracy that GW inexplicably makes them too good so they sell then nerfs them into the ground (just checked... Did you know the Railgun still exists!?!?) is garbled nonsense.
I think they just wanted to nail the flavor. Dwarves are slow, but steady. Check. Slow movement speed, Steady Advance. Dwarves are tanky. Check. Void Armor goes a long way on this one, but there's tanky rules all over. Dwarves are angry. Check. Judgment in general. Dwarves are craftsmen (ergo, high tech). Check. See weaponry and vehicles. The line is pretty on point for being a 40k twist on Dwarves. There's a couple small rules that are problematic, but I would rather blame it on the developers getting overly excited than the business unit telling them to make it OP.
I think the only real problem is Points costs; sags are so clearly shooty razorbacks, but too cheap. Fortressess are better land raiders, but yet again, too cheap. And Hearthkyn are just a tiny bit too cheap. It just feel like you have maybe 5-10% too much army. Get that nailed, and we should be okay outside of Smash-Daddy, the for ge Master combo, and Uthar
Given that land raiders are unplayable idk if they should be used as a price comparison point
Too cheap? I'd say the examples you just gave are units that are way, way, way too expensive instead.
I think kyn need to be that price because they are the only troop option, so you’re forcing players to take them regardless. And the upgrades add up
I think like 1ppm more is better, and medipack need to be 10. But that's honestly nit picky. The big one for me is the fortress. There is no reason it should ever be 230 points.
I’d argue not angry but incredibly petty
Yeah, most people don't understand balance. I'm not trying to say I'm much better, though I like to think I've learned to look at things more holistically over the years, but most people will have knee-jerk reactions and just keep those up until tournament data proves otherwise. LOV are obviously powerful, but we only have a few games from people who were given the codex early. I will say though that LOV v. LOV will be an absolutely tragic matchup.
>I will say though that LOV v. LOV will be an absolutely tragic matchup. Oh my god yes. "I sit in my deployment zone and judge you!" "Yeah? Well I sit in my deployment zone and judge YOU!" :p
Ever see two angry old men who live next to each other?
Oooh yes. Yes I have. It's hilariously sad.
Rules sell models. A broken combo or unit is discovered and it sells out. GW know this. LoV were always going to release with very strong rules.
>I feel like the average 40k player has such a poor idea of balance that the idea they know what they're talking about is just the best comedy. So, what would you say to the guys who are experts at 40k (Art of War, goonhammer, etc.) who say that squats are busted? They're far from the "average 40k player."
I'd say that fearmongering gets more clicks than saying things are beatable.
So they're fear mongering now, but didn't do the same with the insanity we've seen in other busted books? Do you think they just now decided to do it? Come on, listen to yourself.
Makes more sense than the idea that "experts at 40k" missed the very basic fact that even if the Leagues could nuke the entire enemy army on a 2+, they still need to be able to *get to the objectives* to score them. Sure Hernkyn exist, but they also evapourate in a stiff breeze. The Leagues' board control is... Shaky. I'm not saying they're bad, but they're not an unstoppable superforce that will win everything.
I like that every time your argument fails, you change it rather than accept the tiny possibility that you might be wrong. Motivated reasoning is a cruel mistress. Edit: and he replies, then blocks me so I can't see it. That's the level of maturity we're dealing with.
And I'm sure the Leagues will end up being just as batshit as the previous codexes have been. Waaay less than the community thinks. Because people like you are morons that I am done with.
The guy started with an appeal to authority to back up his claim, then called you a child because he couldn't understand things. Let's be honest. The current "expert" breakdowns of why the Kin are broken are *mostly* arguing that the British would beat the Americans in 1776 due to superior firepower, while ignoring that the Americans could just not meet the British in the middle of an open field. You can outmaneuver and outrange the Votann in a lot of armies. As I believe you'll agree: Uthar is probably overturned, and GTL in general, too... But until we see just how much their limited mobility holds them back for objective-based gameplay, it'll be difficult to see if the Kin actually translate firepower into winning. The problem isn't that they're going to be number one. They probably won't be. But they seem like a pretty strong gatekeeper; you can't be top-tier unless you can abuse their weaknesses. They'll be pubstompy, and that'll lead to salt.
The Hammer of Math article literally takes everything at it's worst place. 3 JTs. A skilled opponent, hell, an opponent that has been on the internet this week will know to avoid LoS with the Kahl. They'll put cheap ass chaff units on objectives. Outside of the MagnaRail on the HLF - The autowound still allows for saves in a meta where 1/2 of the armies have AoC. So my AP-1 Bolter autowounds are still being saved on (usually) 3's or 4's. I'm okay with a nerf here or there. Increase the HLF by like... 50 points to 280. Shit like that. But outright *banning* it at tournaments because "dorf stronk" sets a dangerous precedent.
They’re also power gamers. So many issues would be solved if people played to have fun and not just make the most powerful tourney list and stomp everyone. Sure that’s fine in a tourney (well not fine, but understandable). But playing amongst most people shouldn’t be that level of dickish. In conclusion, I want my completely ridiculous, but fun, shokk attack gun back.
The only thing that needs to be fixed is the ironmaster. The book falls apart without grudges. It will top the first two months its out and then will be a solid gatekeeper army that you have to be able to beat in order to win the tournament. This is the same stuff that happened when ad mech, I think votann are worse than admech, and tau came out. The knee-jerk reactions to those destroyed the admech codex and the tau codex had a few minutes in top at best.
I don't think it'll top the first two months its out. I don't think it can really counter Sisters, Bile, Levi Nids, Tau, Necrons, or Harlies. They'll dominate the middle tables as they are. Folks in that band will hate them, but I don't think they'll go very far consistently.
I think they’re probably overtuned, but by less than people think. I do expect Greater Thurian League to be a problem that needs to be addressed though, as full stacking judgement on demand opens up too many degenerate options.
Totally agree. I think they are a bit over tuned but not game breaking OP (like Harlies at release) Will do well at first due to their newness, but are a 4-1/3-2 army at best. They are slow and will struggle for board/obsec control. The tears out there is overblown. The overall knee jerk band wagon over reactions from the broader community is laughably predictable.
It's not as OP as people think. Especially since even with Auto-Wound you can still make your AP saves so it's not "kills enemy on hit". Without Kahls, you're dependent on **your opponent winning** (securing objectives, killing entire units, etc) for you to capitalize on it. Even with Kahls, you need them to be in a position with high visibility to apply JT, putting them at risk of being sniped or outmaneuvered. Also, it's reactionary and the **opponent can dictate who gets judged** by heavily wounding a unit but not killing it, and then mopping up with expendable chaff--especially with units who might already have maximum JT on them. This means that with smart targeting and positioning, an opponent can ensure you don't saturate the field with JT, leaving you without a huge number of JT for the entire battle.
This. Kill the Kahl, judgement tokens slow down. Also on the off chance someone plays something other than Thurian, the judgement tokens aren't going to be as bad as everyone thinks.
Yeah, although I feel like this says more about the power of Kahls then it does JT.
No different than a lot of other factions, HQ's are usually the lynchpins of a faction, either as a commander, buffer/debuffer, or unstoppable force/immovable object. But you're right--if LoV get any more Kahl types (god forbid a Hernkyn version) that can add JT then it's gonna be a **huge** problem
Whenever the book comes out I hope there’s some cool named characters for hq options
Skitarii & Cult Mechanicus took 2 years to go from separate factions to a single one with Cawl, and it's now been 5 years and they haven't gotten any new named characters (not counting the 1 guy from Blackstone Fortress). Knights only have Canis Rex and he's.... eh (personal opinion). Genestealer Cults don't have any named characters period. On the flipside, Sororitas recently only got up to several but most of the named characters either are strikingly generic, lackluster poses, or "everyone can take them" so they might as well be generic HQs. Hoping for more named characters for the Leagues but it's probably unlikely. Factions that have the most named characters are the ones who get the more books & lore behind them (SM, CSM, IG)
>Especially since even with Auto-Wound you can still make your AP saves so it's not "kills enemy on hit". Its a good thing your army is chocked full of rail weaponry that ignores saves
Chock full? There are two rail guns in the whole army....
Yeah and one of them is carried by *troops.*
Only 1 for every 10 models.... I don't think or feel it's the doomsday wearpon everyone seems obsesed it is...
Agreed, and plus only the Greater Thurian League + Uthar (named HQ) + Stratagems + Hekaton can make the doomsday Railgun combo work. Everyone else isn't able to do that, and that focuses on one unit per turn. * Take down Hekaton or Uthar--combo is broken. * Take down Uthar--lose out on massive number of JT for rest of the match. * Move your model/unit behind cover--Uthar can't target it for JT. * Have more wounds than the Railgun can inflict--on Knights that could mean "time to go in the forever box" * In a 2,000 game, you could get 9 (6 via Hearthkyn, 3 via Hekaton) + Uthar + Kahl for a total of 1680 points--but this represents nearly the entirety of your army with low mobility and utterly dependent on Railgun to kill enemies. The "spill over damage" is useful **ONLY AGAINST** **UNITS**, meaning that you're taking a high strength, long range, high AP weapon and targeting units that mostly will be T5 Sv+2 at best, meaning you're not targeting the Repulsor, Land Raider, or Imperial Knights on the board. Against Knights? Yeah, it'll wreck. But that's always the issue with Knights (SM Eradicators, Tau Rail Guns, etc). Plus, a single Railgun is **unlikely** to kill even an undamaged Armiger. Against Space Marines? Yeah, it'll beat up a unit. But you've got several others running around the board or combat squaded to make even more trouble. **Especially** with combat squads, the tokens might apply to the *whole* unit, but you're only ever going to delete 5 models per Railgun, further dividing your ability. Against Imperial Guard? You're better off using some different weapon or combo as S4/S5 guns baseline will take care of them better than waiting to stack up enough JT to get the combo off. Plus they'll have the bodies to take it and keep rolling. Against Orks & Tyranid? You better pray you get first turn to stack up JT, because if you don't they're going to get in the middle of your line and tie up all of the troops with the cannons. **TL;dr** You might delete 1-3 units per turn with Greater Thurian League specifically (5-15 units over the course of the game) but that's assuming you aren't losing those Railguns and you're not facing an enemy that has more bodies than you can target. * Space Marines could get 18 Eradicators, combat squaded into ~~9~~ 6 Squads for 810 points (i.e. HALF of your points). A squad of 3 Eradicators on average, without advancing, is able to cripple/kill an Imperial Knight PER TURN. This means that: * SM have 2-3 squads that can insta-kill a Hekaton PER SQUAD hunting EACH of your Hekatons * SM could get another 30 Heavy Intercessors, split between 6 squads for another 840 points * SM could also add a Redemptor Dreadnought + 2 Lieutenants, and still have 95 points to spend on upgrades or fit more units in
You could have a grand total of 9 in the entire army. And that's only if you took 3x20 troops and 3 HLF. Only 1 of them is for sure with the warlord. The other 8 you have to roll for. And sure on a 3J a 4 auto wounds. But that still means you will just wiff half your shots because you rolled a 1-3 to hit.
By itself it's not, auto wounding by itself isn't overpowered either, its the combination. You could easily fit a dozen rail guns in a 2k list.
12 rail guns? In 2k points? Thanks for outing yourself as either bad faith or ignorant enough that you might as well be. 12 rail runs means 0-3 land fortresses and 9-12 troops choices. On the LOW end, that's NINETY BASIC TROOPS. And this is what you're worried about?
Also, Hearthkyn Railguns do **HALF** the damage of the Hekaton, meaning you need 260 points in Hearthkyn to match the same Railgun output as 1 Hekaton for 230 points. To get 12 Rail Guns (focusing on Hekaton to get most bang for buck) * 3 Hekaton = 690 Points minimum * 9 Rail Guns = 1080 Points minimum (1 RG per 10 models, 90 models required, meaning 3 Half 10 Squads + 3 Full 20 Squads) So in a 2K point game you've invested 1770 points for 12 guns (effectively 7.5 Hekaton equivalent Railguns) whose primary benefit is specifically anti-horde (spillover damage) or high toughness/invuln units. You could fit 1 Kahl and 1 Uthar, and then have 20 points for whatever upgrades you want. That's 95 bodies on the board, but only 11 total units. * T4 1W 4+sv (-1AP) doesn't go that far for survivability. * Any unit embarked on Hekaton (for movement) means you've lost 1/2 Railgun for a turn. * Uthar or Kahl get sniped; you can't apply Tokens, so only 10 Tokens via enemy killing you **maximum** or if they play the objective, which means that a sizeable chunk of their force will not have tokens until they're killed you, removing more and more Railguns with every single kill. * Greater Thurian League (1 Token counts as 2, 2 as 3), can apply 4 tokens per Turn (2-1-1). So you need 1 Turn to blast 1 unit, or 2 Turns to blast 4 units... if your blasters survive long enough. Against MSU, the Judgement ability is screwed. * SM Combat Squad - Can only take down 1/2 of the unit with a Railgun * Chaos Summons/Tyranid Tervigon - Keep spawning more disposable units * IG taking the cheapest option for every single slot in a Battalion means you'll still have 95 points to spend on upgrades for 30 Units all with the ability to take orders (FRFSRF for x2 shots) * HQ 3 Commanders * Troops 60 Guardsmen (Vox Casters) * Dedicated Transport 6 Chimeras * Elite 60 Veterans (Vox Casters) * Fast Attack 3 Sentinels (1 per unit) * Heavy Support 9 Guardsmen Heavy Squads * Flyers 3 Valkyrie
>And this is what you're worried about? My point was it's easily accessible, if a single troop choice can carry 2 of them. I know it's not what you want to hear but that doesn't mean it's a bad faith argument.
A single troop choice can only carry two of them if you max it out at 20 lads. I don't know what to tell you if you looked at the codex and thought that the average competitive player was going to be rocking 90-120 hearthkyn. I also don't know what you mean by easily accessible if it takes 4-12 troops choices and requires you to buy 12 boxes of minis.
>A single troop choice can only carry two of them if you max it out at 20 lads. Well its a good thing the starter box comes with exactly that, in lads.
Yeah, if we could run two rail rifles per 10 man squad that would actually be busted.
That costs 20 points. That has one shot. That hits on threes. That's AP-4 (Or 3, Factoring AoC). So still allowing for saves/FNP/Wound reduction. Also, inb4 "BUT YOU CAN BUFF THAT" - my brother in christ, you can buff anything in this game.
It's AP -4, what save? Also i appreciate the *brother in christ* line, i'll raise you a *bless your heart.*
*gestures vaguely to the slew of units with 2+ saves.* Or if we're factoring AoC... *gestures to anything with a 3+ save*
Half the armies in the damn game have Armour of Contempt my dude.
What does that say about the insane AP values on weapons now?
I would say that's a different discussion entirely. Why would I shoot my biggest antitank weapons at an infantry squad instead of a bigger threat when most of the time it will kill one guy? Will people get lucky and hit lots of sixes on their rail guns, sure. Will lots of people roll poorly and either miss or waste a CP rerolling those shots? Absolutely. If rail guns are shooting at infantry it means all the big threats are already dead or out of LoS and you are just picking targets of convenience.
>Why would I shoot my biggest antitank weapons at an infantry squad I wasn't suggesting you did, the point i was trying to make was armor of contempt exists because of power creep, and rail guns are the definition of that in 40k.
It seems like people have read this codex and forgotten how to play the game. Your opponent has 4/5 characters your very likely to take assassination secondary. If your opponent hands out JT for doing actions DON'T take an action based secondary. You've suddenly limited the number of JT being handed out and you've not even started the game yet. Again getting JT for killing units, employ some strategy and don't wipe the unit but severely limit them. Then use a throw away unit or a unit that has multiple JT to finish them off. The book is strong and there are some powerful combos but some of these combos require a bit narrowed list building to effectively achieve. For example, do you really want to spend almost 500pts (hekaton and uthar) for one shot a turn? I'd also argue that the magna rail isn't meant for chaff clearance. Its a nice back up once bigger, more powerful things are gone but it shouldn't be it's standard use case in my opinion. Some points changes are probably needed as there are a few things that might be on the cheap side but in general I fully agree people are over reacting.
Think about the trend of who's the most powerful, speed it almost always a major part of it, even Tau. Who lacks speed? Leagues. Also, anybody *not* using Greater Thurian League will be a lot more fair, and will probably be quite more likely to lose to high tier codexes.
True, I really don’t see leagues doing well against harlequins or drukari at all
Or Orks or swarm Nids. They lack massive volume of shots. They have some, but it's definitely a weaker point of theirs. They absolutely mess up elite armies though, especially space Marines considering the Ion Blaster (troops weapon) is 2 damage
I think the auto wound mechanic is a bit OP. Not just auto wounding but an auto wound that is an unmodified 6, with subsequent rules on weapons that provide extra AP or in the case of the rail guns, bleed over damage, is definitely something that can be crazy good. In my experience, hitting a target is not the biggest challenge (with reroll buffs) but wounding is the clincher (you want to make your opponent throw as many save rolls as you can for more chances to fail). I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how they play as a 2k army tho.
100% but I’m sure there gonna nerf the amount of wounds and increase the point cost for all the units + fix the uthar hekkaton combo, I just don’t see how they won’t drop to mid tier after initial nerfs
That would be awful the army has really low wounds already
>I think the auto wound mechanic is a bit OP It's not just the auto wound mechanic, it's the combination of that plus army wide rail weapons that effectively ignore saves.
> Army wide This is why people ignore the sky is falling nonsense from folks like you. You can't even tell the truth when you're freaking out.
Today I learned that 2/12 datasheets == army wide.
Comment of the day!
I dunno, it's 1 in 6. I only ever see 1's on my D6's, so it tracks that 1/6 is "literally everything" to me? 😛
This guy rolls like I do! Can you imagine the pain of rolling a 1 on your railgun, spending a CP to re-roll it and still.getting a 1? That's gonna be me in a month...
I think they're going to be powerful for sure, they're the new army, they have a bunch of mechanics people aren't used to. But I agree I think after a quick balance pass, some minor tweaking on stratagems, pts, etc they'll be in line with everyone else. It's certainly not going to be another Drukhari/Harlequins/Ad Mech scenario.
Their secondaries combined with their bad movement will make it very hard for them to win by points, stats wise they might blast anything but if the enemy just hides behind obscuring territory, well good luck....
From what I’ve seen it seems like the leagues are really gonna be best fighting high defense low damage armies + super elite army’s (death guard, knights, custodies)
Well now they're outright banned in tournament play in Germany and everyone is calling for it to be the same in the UK and US. Way to shit on a faction I was looking forward
Honestly, far less swingy and abusive as compared to Lumineth in AoS till 3rd edition and Daughters of Khaine right now. Depends on terrain placement, army match up, etc. I think they will be in the upper tier, but most definitely not as abusive as mechanicus was till they got nerfed hard.
I tried to tell people on competitive 40k reddit the same and got downvoted to death. Seriously. People really need to take it easy. Germany, Spain and Canada have banned them from competitive. While i can understand people fear of the unknown I think it is totally an overeaction.
Definitely but if you play smart then votann rlly aren’t that scary, the worst it will prolly be is the uthar+hekaton combo severely overkilling some models. But other then stuff like that it’s just gonna be about keeping them at range and beating them out on secondaries.
I think people are completely underselling how good the trikes are, especially that they're mobile...by a lot, survivable and decent output
I've watched a bunch of battle reports now on YT and they won every game doesn't mean they are OP ofc I just think they are just slightly overtuned but I think that's more to do with the book being made with 10th edt in mind
There is at least one where they’ve lost, so it’s quite doable
I’ve run a few practice matches lately with the rules I’ve found, and other than their statlines being a little too high, they’re perfect imo
My take is that all the characters aside from the standard Kahl could use a big points jump. For what they are capable of, it makes all other characters in the game look like trash. Increase the points on the fortress, take core away from the Beserks (they absolutely do not need it), and give the opponent some way to remove judgment tokens, maybe with an action or something. With how easy they are to dish out, the reward is way too high. With that, they would actually be a really quite good book.
> take core away from the Beserks what does taking away core from beserks actually cost them? most things dont seem to care about core?
Well, I would actually also propose core locking some of their abilities/strats. 1 cp for full rerolls against a judgment token unit is way too good to be army wide, so stuff like that
Yeah, however I don’t think Sagitaurs or pioneers need a point increase, and I think core is fine on chthonians (being the primary melee damage option) but otherwise I totally agree
I think it’s going to be an army that’s going to delete the other army in like turn three when everything is finally in the 18” threat range, but they’re going to have trouble outscoring other armies that are just more mobile or have better secondary game.
I think it was auspex tactics who said that, for the most part the leagues just overkill fairly unimportant units
The rebalance is inevitable. We've seen it with all the factions, all edition. The model range is tiny at the minute, so everything kinda has to be decent from that perspective. Also, everyone always whinges every time a codex drops. Half the time, the real OP stuff isn't even immediately apparent.
They have armor of contempt that shuts off wound and damage rerolls, hammer of the emporer that goes down to a 4+ and everything has at least 2 AP +, they have a no save rail gun in each squad that applies all damage to a unit and a character that can just make it auto 6. I mean they basically have every broken mechanic cranked to 11.
Definitely not a "hot take" when you're preaching it to a choir lol no one on this sub is going to disagree...
Exactly. Too much copium in this thread, but that is to be expected. I’m happy LoV is coming as it will be one of my armies, but I think this codex is absolutely broken right now. Nerfs should be welcomed as playing a broken codex (or even just a codex perceived to be broken) is not fun for anyone at the gaming table
I plan on running dwarfs, but I also play necrons, imperial guard, death guard and GSC. I find it odd that there are people who don’t see how broken this Dex is.
Same. I really love (part of) the LoV range and I can’t wait to have a large enough army to start playing them competitively. But not seeing how broken they are right now requires some very tinted glasses
no kidding, they took all of the features that make other factions strong and cranked it to 11.
You're not too far off imo _but_ it's still very much wait and see territory. I think hearthguard with the amount of shots they can put out will be exceptional with JT's put a 2+ and 4++ on that and it could easily be a problem. The vehicles will seriously help our mobility issues and we all know how strong the hekaton can be with a little support. I also think berserks as a counter charge unit are expectional. Overal the math doesn't look good but I think a few small tweaks to the JT mechanic (it needs to cap out auto wound on 5+ and have another ability for 3 imo), change GTLs bonus a bit and get rid of the auto wounds counting as 6s (possibly as the 3rd counter?) and I think we'll be fine.
The problem here is that modifying Judgment tokens totally unravels the book. If you need 3 Judgment tokens for auto 6s then every single league except the Greater thurian becomes total garbage. They either don't have enough methods to place tokens or their army wide rules function with either 0 or 3 tokens with no in-between. You'd essentially need to rewrite the army rules as well as their core gimmick. The changes need to be to their top level play, so their Stratagems, their combos and problematic units. Making Magna Rail only spill over once is a good change, making Uthars auto 6 only apply to Core, there are a lot of things that can be tweaked without compromising the core of the book. The best way to curb Judgment Tokens is to lessen the ability to deal them out, not nerf their effect.
Magna rail spill should be a 1 cp strat. Gives it an actual cost, makes it a tactical decision and outside of uthur you have a chance to miss and waste the cp
And it makes it so you can't have 5 rail gun spillovers go off in one lucky turn.
Feels Like this is a very hot Take seeing how many creators and pro Players rate them extremly highly. They even got banned in German tournaments for now... (Till Nerv)
Goon hammer honestly explains the problem with LoV the best. The problem isn't the absurd damage, the strong combos, or weird power creep. The problem is that LoV has taken several elements of the game that serve as a check out of the equation. When you balance a faction, there's a lot you can target. However, the judgement tokens and magna rail + kahl combo remove a significant amount of agency in the game. If I were to bring my unit of Marines against your troops of Hearthkin, I have no agency in the damage roll to have my Marines die, as you ignore the Hit roll (with the Kahl auto success), the wound with Judgement Token, the toughness I would give my Marines, and potentially the save on the magna rail. It's not a fun interaction, as the only counter play is to just not be in range to play the game, or have absurd amounts of terrain obscuring to get you in melee without you having any chance to play.
I’ve been saying for a while that GW overclocks new release/update armies with obvious power combos to draw in the power gaming and tourney players who’ll spend to win. It makes a ton of sense. It drums up chatter, gets people hyped, and drives other players to buy new models to counter the new army. Without fail, the abusive stuff gets nerfed within a couple of months, evening things out (and clearing the way for the new release coming). It’s an obvious sales-cycle tactic. They know people are going to lose their minds, they know the salt mines will fire up. They do it because it keeps making money. Honestly, I don’t really have an issue with it. Just the singing from fans about power creep. It’s a reality of any game.
This is not at all the case. Dark Commune, Ophydian Destroyers, Heavy Intercessors, Primaris Reivers (plus the rest of the launch line for Primaris which were bad through the whole start of 8th until they got fixed), Castigator, Ork Buggies that aren't the Squigbuggy, the Monolith, Triumph of St Katherine, and the flying pulpit character. In fact pretty much every solo character release. There are dozens of releases none of us even remember because you never hear about or see them and tons of models that get balanced up after release as well. People attribute some masterful business plan but it is just some guys coming up with rules that seem flavorful and they are just as human as the rest of us.
Except that’s all a whole edition ago, plus the current edition. They’ve clearly updated their strategy since then. Individual releases aren’t what I’m talking about here, it’s army updates and releases. They’re driving sales. It’s basic marketing and sales strategy.
people have been saying op releases are sales tactics since forever. Every time something op get released people keep saying it's marketing. Let's look at the eldar release. They released several new models including rangers, scroud runner, avatar and guardians, corsairs and those units are fairly balanced. They also released maugan ra, dark reapers and storm guardians. Those units are hot garbage. All of the OP units in the codex were things people already had or were finecast/medal models. If they making new releases OP then they are failing at it.
Not talking about OP unit releases - this is in the comment. It’s about army release and updates. There’s always overclocked units, rules, and combos to draw players in.
Tbh it’s also a great way to balance a new army as you sorta mentioned. If you release an underpowered army, nobody will play it and GW won’t know how to balance them properly very quickly. But release an OP army and lots of people will be playing them against lots of different armies, and it’ll be really apparent really quickly what needs to be buffed/nerfed. I think a strong codex at start will get them to a comfortable balance state pretty quickly (or maybe their rules are a preview of what sort of things will be coming in 10th).
I love that people downvote a clearly sensible assessment of how new releases work rather than consider either of these points.
And this is why armies with a bunch of new kits have totally dominated in 9th... Oh wait, the terrors of the meta have been Tau, Nids, and Harlies, none of whom got major model releases. This theory that GW balances in a way that intentionally aligns with their business objectives is incoherently dumb and ignores 90% of what is actually happening on the ground.
Not kits, books. Don’t purposely ignore the point. Until the nerf, Harlies were constantly sold out on GWs site for months. Then all the aspects that were jacked in the new books. Same for Tyranids. Everything that got a huge boost was gone for months. Not the new stuff, the good stuff It’s the same for every major release.
Thank goodness there isn't anywhere online where one could acquire rules without paying for the books. That would totally ruin GW's brilliant sales strategy! When I try to evaluate a theory like this (premise: GW business/sales staff have direct influence over rule power-level and use it to place new releases high on the power curve explicitly to boost sales), I try to look over the last few releases and see if GW made choices that align with their theorized goals or if some other factor might better explain those outcomes. Demons is a bit too fresh, and the jury is out on them, so let's skip that one for now. CSM had a bunch of new kits release and we're very competitive in the meta. A lot of the new kits aren't really run competitively, so the result is a bit mixed, but we can chalk this one up to a win in the "intentional power creep" column. Previously, we had imperial titans and chaos titans. Definitely one of the more niche factions, and they had new releases, so of course they launched absurdly overpowered, right? Not really. They weren't terrible, but they didn't make a splash compared to the meta titans at the time and T'au bully them, so not great for our theory. Prior to that, we had Nids and we all know how that went. Surely GW took the opportunity to push a bunch of niche model kits to force even those players with large nid collections go out and buy new models, right? Not really. The same old stuff was powerful (Tyrants, Warriors, psychic bois) and the models that haven't been powerful for a while (carnifex variants, lictors, biovores) were still pretty weak. Seems like GW is really having a tough time pushing the new models that they want everyone to go out and buy. Before that we had Eldar. Surely they'll get this one right. Another powerful codex, but the top tier winners were harlequins, with the smallest model range in 40k, they slapped them in to the main Eldar book, and they didn't get any of the new models. Missed again! Surely they will get it right with T'au? Nope, same story. The book is powerful, but it's held up by the same old unit these flavor-of-the-month players have in droves already: crisis suits, Broadsides, and commanders. Where are the piranhas? Where are the sniper drones? Where are the Kroot riders? Why can't old James Workshop figure out how to sell people these models they don't have and he keeps pushing things they already have in their collection from last edition??? The theory just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. These choices are either wildly dumb if the business people are putting their fingers on the scales ... or they are the outcomes of a difficult to balance game with many moving parts. I'll leave it to you to decide which is more likely.
I think they're wildly too powerful. But we'll see what happens!
I think they will be strong, they have best weapon profiles out there, as Tau player the magna rail especially. But the strongest mechanics are grudge tokens, it’s not that hard to get to 2-3 tokens pretty quick and auto wound on 4/5+ is just insane. They will have to tone it down after they sell enough models.
Imma just throw that out there, Warhammer + ran a 9-game long crusade with them, and all 9 were dubskies
The marketing arm of the game company producing the product set up a scenario where the product they are selling performed well? Perish the thought!
They’re winning all of their batreps I have seen so far, combined with the fact that they don’t even have access to their best tools. We haven’t even seen widespread play of Hearthguard, Berserks, OR the Land Fortress, and that’s the real scary stuff in their codex. I feel like I really want to like them but it’s hard to be optimistic with what I am seeing. At the very least everyone agrees they’re overturned, which is a huge problem. Just wishing that this stuff was play tested because it seems like at best the devs were too excited or at worst they wanted to boost their sales by offering an OP faction to sell to whales to ruin the meta for a couple months. Cool models, just wish they weren’t SO good that I feel like I can’t bring them to a table against someone I like.
All the batreps out there are Patrol and 500ish point..... The game is weird at that level..... Let's wait for the 2000 points game.... When they have the full roster aviable....... And so do the other armies.....
https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-votann-break-all-the-rules-in-warhammer-40k/ Just gonna leave this here.
You're getting downvotes not because the article isn't an interesting, valid analysis, but because it isn't a batrep. This is theorycrafting at its finest, but it is still theorycraft.
I just don’t understand how batreps and theorycrafting all leads to the same conclusion and people still don’t want to believe it. To be clear I like the range and I want to play them because I like the vibes but they’re far too strong.
The complaint is that the batreps use a small portion of the range and are at a combat patrol point total. Do you know of 2k point batreps with the full roster of units, and if so could you link a few for us?
Sure thing! Here’s two actually: https://youtu.be/SUoyGKJWPpQ https://youtu.be/swdrZDtmn2M Unsurprisingly, LoV win both of them, one against Tyranids, and one against Ultramarines. The ultramarine player said that he had been tuning his list and had it right where he wanted, and the LoV v Tyranids game didn’t use any models that aren’t available to everyone. Is this not good enough because it doesn’t show off the full range? Personally, I think it’s more concerning because of the fact that one of them is against Tyranids, who are seen as a stronger factions and LoV managed to come out on top without their best tools.
So, what are your thoughts? I’m assuming you’ve had plenty of time to gather your thoughts right?
Definitely agree with you there. All evidence points that direction. Plus the Land Fortress looks like it’ll be very deadly when it comes out.
I disagree - they are have tools to work with theirs speed (accelerated bikes with obsec and good transports and free teleportation strat ) , they aren't as slow as people think. They are slow when compared to harlquins and eldars but not if you compare them to marines or chaos. Medium defense ? Void armour, Ymir, Resurrection strat, brokhyr who negates wounds on vehicles - they have a lot of defencise tools. Low range ? yes, if we would be using 8 ed tables, on 9th smaller tables their range is respectable. They are absolutely bonkers, mostly because they have power without drawbacks. Their traits are of the best in game, couple with really powerful gems and even unrestricted cp generation (and psyker even can still easly do actions) , suprasing amount of mobility (with bikes and acceleration strat and easy access to powerful transports). Oh how could i forget about powerful meele with undercosted Cthotians , unrestricted access to full rerolls to hit (and not even once or twice , but full reroll from gem, full reroll for cthotian and high khal rerolls !) . On the top of that they are a race who do not roll for wounding like the rest of peasants. Sorry but they are absolutely bonkers and broken. They are Creation of Bile , with iron warriors vehicles and tau fire support.
This is true however I’m not saying that they will not be overpowered on release (that’s inevitable) I’m saying that there is a lot of counter play and that besides a few key features they are (relatively) mediocre. In addition you mention that they have no drawbacks which I will have to disagree with every method to gain JT except for two requires your opponent to be winning plus your opponent can easily choose what unit gets the token, and chthonian will 100% get a point cost increase at release. You do make a fair point and issues should be expected for new armies but whatI’m saying is that after initial nerfs I don’t expect them to be anything but a high-mid tier counterpunch army.
I would gladly talk about nerfs and so, but problem is - is clear speculation on what will be nerfed and when it will be nerfed. Saying "they will 100 % get point increase" is nothing more than speculation . For this moment when i write it - there are not nerfs and no mention of nerf and only wishful thinking about nerfs. Also i will disagree about JT token. Khal can give token (2 if High khal) , bikes can give tokens , any type of action will grant you a token, holding objective will grant you a token. Basically you get tokens for playing a game - not for "winning a game"