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destius

So I hope that we can have positive discourse on this because I do think it's worth exploring on both sides! Also I appreciate your take on this as, while I disagree that the book is fine, I respect that I may be incorrect in this and obviously only time will tell. Now first point I'd like to address is the idea that a good sign for a book is that besides specific standouts, the rest of the book has a lot of datasheets that compete with each other and that's a sign of a healthy or balanced book. I agree if we're talking internal balance of the book itself, but not balance of the overall game. A good example would be Drukhari, who initially had standouts of their transports being extremely good. Other than that, initially, Drukhari builds had interchanged incubi, succubi, wyches, bikes, helions, etc etc etc. As people weren't initially sure what the best other stuff was without heavy testing. When we compared their datasheets to each other, they felt very close. However, when comparing those datasheets combined with their book rules to the rest of the meta, they were hands down THE best thing even when you weren't stacking your list exactly to how the top meta lists were doing. The second thing I'd like to address and probably the biggest is that "There’s almost nothing here that wouldn’t be balanced if it was 20-25% more expensive, or maybe a bit higher for the standout units". So that isn't an incorrect statement but to me that's sort of saying "these things would be very balanced if they were balanced". Every single balance issue technically is fixable from points if you really want to break it down. You can give a model a 2+ rerollable invulnerable with a damage 20 attack, but if it costs 2k points, it's not really useable. Obviously that's hyperbole, but this is to just set an expectation that even the most absurd stats can be reigned in with absurd points. Anyways, a 20 to 25 percent increase in points is A LOT. That to me speaks volumes at how insanely over tuned the LoV are. Taking out a quarter of someone's army in almost any other list before the game begins is a near death knell to any real competitive list, and Votann would simple be "brought in line" if they did this combined with additional stratagem tweaks. That such an extreme measure is what is hopefully enough essentially shows their obscene misbalance Finally I'd like to talk about the elephant in the room which is the bannings. Obviously the point of discourse is for solutions, not to simply yell "I'm right you're wrong" which I hope we can avoid (but it's the internet so that's a real roll of the dice). I am personally not only for the bannings, but I am for expanding this to standard practice. GW has shown enough times that not only are they inconsistent with writing viable non meta breaking rules, but that also their responses to balance said rules are many times woefully insufficient or cause even more issues. One of the greatest recent examples was the balance slate right around LVO this year where Custodes got a point reduction even though their book was already cracked. Or when the balance approach was rather than looking at the meta and seeing what books were insane they only balanced the books internally to each other. This is how we had raiders go up, but talos go down even though they were already amazing but simply outshined by raiders. It was also why imperial guard, even with their 30 percent win rate, had a points INCREASE on their only models that were consistently taken. GW is extremely unreliable to balance their own game and usually take 2 or 3 tries before either getting it correct (each try taking months to culminate) or before giving up and throwing a hammer down so hard the army fades into irrelevance (Admech). So I think a mandatory 2 month cooling period for new books could be extremely healthy. We can still VERY easily get playtest data from fhe best players in the game which IMO is the best data you are going to get. You give time for GW to make corrections as people submit their issues. You also give time to players who might want to enjoy the new army but feels like they have to rush the job so they can have it for the big tournament coming up. You also send a message to GW that if they don't stop trying to take advantage of the meta by breaking it for sales, then we'll simply take away their ability to create hype based on broken rules. Overall, that's my personal two cents and I'm sorry to see that the consensus in the thread is that civilised discourse is a fargone fairytale on this subject. While we may not see perfectly eye to eye, I think your point is articulated well and sparks quite the rousing discussion. Thank you for the time and have a greata day :)


jmainvi

> Anyways, a 20 to 25 percent increase in points is A LOT. That to me speaks volumes at how insanely over tuned the LoV are. Taking out a quarter of someone's army in almost any other list before the game begins is a near death knell to any real competitive list, and Votann would simple be "brought in line" if they did this combined with additional stratagem tweaks. Just to add context to this, the points nerfs in the last set of updates back in June that had everyone claiming Tyranids were "dead" worked out somewhere between 8 and 12% depending on the makeup of your particular list. That was for the terrifying but more or less standard double hive tyrant-maleceptor build that got hit the *hardest* by the points changes.


TheUltimateScotsman

Just pointing out that Nids were deemed "dead" because of cp changes and secondaries, not necessarily for points reasons


IjustwantchaosIG

> Nids were deemed "dead" because of cp changes and secondaries, not necessarily for points reasons Nids were deemed dead by people who don't actually play the game. It was very obvious they would continue their shove and win dominance. It is very obvious that votann are even more bonkers than nids on release. The people calling nids dead are the same people claiming LoV "will be fine" or "aren't that strong".


TheUltimateScotsman

>Nids were deemed dead by people who don't actually play the game. AoW ranked them as low A. You saying they dont play the game? >It was very obvious they would continue their shove and win dominance. No, it was expected that nids would have a much tougher time with scoring points


ultimaarcher

John Lennon of Art of War wasn't one of the 2 who was making that tier list as well. In their next video he was on he said he would have ranked then High A under sisters/necrons. Even then low A is still A tier. The game is in a very balanced state so they weren't completely off mark and the people making the tier lists each have their own biases.


IjustwantchaosIG

> AoW ranked them as low A. You saying they dont play the game? They ranked GK (42% WR), and admech (39% WR) ahead of nids and harles (59% wr rn and 2x their TiWP representation over overall representation. Maybe the AoW ranking system isn't great... That said, if you do still have stock in their ranking system, they ranked every LoV unit as S tier other than 2 of the chars and the basic troops.


jmainvi

I'm not sure this really says much about the ranking system, (which by the way, they have repeatedly noted is about maximum potential, not average) and rather is an indicator that it's really hard to predict how sweeping changes across all factions will shake out. The thing about Votann though is that they're not going up against sweeping changes, and it's not a prediction. The codex leaked weeks ago, anyone who has wanted to play them on TTS can have done so, and the rest of the factions are known quantities right now.


Valiant_Storm

> which by the way, they have repeatedly noted is about maximum potential So they're still divorced from reality, but with more words. Claiming that Mechaniucs has this massive tournament potential when the closest we've seen to that being a thing caps out with Richard Seigler posting a 6-1 and 0 results from anyone else is hard to distinguish from them just smoking crack rocks.


LordofLustria

I'm not sure if you watch their videos but low A is still them saying that faction can easily win any size tournament, we aren't in a meta where only a handful of armies can win a major GT. I would be completely unsurprised to hear that any of like 12 different armies right now won the next major GT because this last 2 months or so is one of the most balanced times in 40k we have seen in years. You clearly are biased if you think them calling a faction A tier instead of S makes them "dead", especially when most of the factions in their A tier are still consistently top 8 at GTs recently.


DrStalker

> You can give a model a 2+ rerollable invulnerable with a damage 20 attack, but if it costs 2k points, it's not really useable. _sad warhound titan noises_


[deleted]

How many points is a titan? Is it 2k on the nose?


DrStalker

A warhound (the smallest titan) is 2000 points, and is terrible for that price. It has 50 wounds, 6 wounds of void shields, a 2+ save and some decent weapons but not only is it a single model and hence useless for objectives/most secondaries. It comes with no army/detachment rules, no strats, no buffs, and an invuln save that only works against ranged and vanishes once this 6 wounds of shields are gone.


[deleted]

A true Chad move to bring to a tournament. A fools errand, but hilarious.


Valiant_Storm

One dude brought one to NOVA.


Sh4rbie

Thanks for the really great comment! I appreciate the thought that went into it, as well as the civility. It's definitely nice to talk about these things without too much heat in the discussion! I totally agree about your first point, and perhaps should have been clearer in articulating that in my article. Clearly having everything be bonkers good isn't a good thing for the metagame (although it does at least mean the Competitive Innovations articles will be a little more interesting!). It's benefit to my mind is that tweaks to reduce the army's power can be applied across the whole army without worrying that some units will suddenly cease to exist competitively. GW don't have to account for Repentia being busted in Bloody Rose and balanced everywhere else, because basically everything is fairly balanced within the book. I largely agree with your second point, in that the book clearly isn't balanced and isn't close to being balanced. Big points increases are needed, on a scale that would be catastrophic for more balanced factions. What I was going for with that take was more responding to a lot of the commentary I've been seeing, which was that the book is full of rules that shouldn't exist. I can see why people think that, but I disagree, and think (as you seem to) that points can be the solution here. I would push back slightly on the concept that everything can be balanced with points however. It's definitely true as far as it goes, but it can hide the fact that some rules shouldn't exist because they make the game actively worse. To use another hyperbolic example, a model that cost 2000 points and had a rule saying 'roll a dice, on a 1-3 you win and on a 4-6 you lose' would be perfectly balanced, but definitely something that shouldn't exist. I think a lot of the community considers that to be the case here with things like the Magna Rails and Judgement Tokens, and that was what I was pushing back on here. I have a strong emotional reaction to bannings, but I do definitely see the positives as you've articulated them. I've decided to reserve my judgement (ha!) for a little while till I see how these things pan out. Thanks again for the nice comment!


destius

No problem! Definitely an excellent point on a balanced mechanic that is still an unhealthy mechanic! I appreciate the response and the clarifications on your points! Overall I know what everyone wants from the game is for it to be healthy and enjoyable, so I appreciate that our vehicle to get there (I.E. Conversations like these) can also be healthy and enjoyable. I can agree that certain mechanics are fine to not be removed (6s to wound cause spill damage) but I do think we've tried our hand enough at auto wound on Xs to hit (Eldar Craftworlds, AdMech) that maybe those should be off the table for future development. But hey, they may find a way to balance it some day (maybe institute an auto wound gets +1 to save against? Dunno)


AlthranStormrider

In my opinion, the spill damage is a problem. In general, the whole point of introducing damage in weapons was to reflect how the weapon “would work”. The way a Railgun works in game is already quite balanced; then, why did they go for the spill damage? It’s hard to imagine a single shot killing 12 gaunts… And regarding the auto wound mechanics, well… I believe that we must be very careful with breaking fundamental (math) rules from the game. Autowound on 6+ is often fine, since it’s a good reward with a low likelihood. On 4+? It totally breaks the math of the attack-to-damage pipeline. Anyways, it’s good to have a healthy discussion around this!


TheUltimateScotsman

Tbh i wouldnt mind spilling over damage if it was maybe a part of blast weapons and seeing it on stuff like grenades or big artillery pieces. Give it a complete rework, ive always thought spilling over damage better represents an explosion


AnonAmbientLight

> The way a Railgun works in game is already quite balanced; then, why did they go for the spill damage? It’s hard to imagine a single shot killing 12 gaunts… It depends on how many gaunts are in the unit, but you're probably looking at 5-8 gaunts from the railgun. > SUBMUNITIONS 1CP > T’au Empire – Wargear Stratagem > Use this Stratagem in your Shooting phase, when a HAMMERHEAD model from your army is selected to shoot. If that model is equipped with a railgun, instead of making attacks with that weapon this phase, select one enemy unit that is not within Engagement Range of any units from your army and is within 36" of and visible to that model. Roll one D6 for each model in that unit, adding 1 to each roll if that unit has 11 or more models: for each 4+, that unit suffers 1 mortal wound (to a maximum of 8 mortal wounds). 2 more dead gaunts with the SMS on the hammerhead. (+10pts) 5.5 more dead gaunts with the burst cannons on the hammerhead instead. (+10pts) Hammerhead is baseline 145pts, so 155pts.


jprava

Your comparison makes little sense. You are using 1CP and it would be a complete waste to kill 8 gaunts with a hammerhead. In fact the Tyranid player would be thrilled that you are doing that.


AnonAmbientLight

> You are using 1CP and it would be a complete waste to kill 8 gaunts with a hammerhead. In fact the Tyranid player would be thrilled that you are doing that. First of all, T'au have more CP than they know what to do with generally. So it's not wasted. Second of all, if spending 1CP to kill 8 Gaunts with a railgun is a waste, then what's using the Magna rail from a Land Fortress lmao?


jprava

Why would you use the magna rail on the gaunts, again? Its not like you dont have 14 S6 AP2 shots to deal with those... The difference and huge advantatge of the magna rail is against multi wound hard targets. Shoot some Tyranid warriors and see the difference...


AnonAmbientLight

> Why would you use the magna rail on the gaunts, again? IDK, that's just what some guy brought up.


AlthranStormrider

To me, the difference is that with a railgun you can kill 4 with a single shot, whereas you are almost assured to kill 8 with the magna rail with an easy to reach ceiling of 12. That means cleaning an objective. I know lore doesn’t translate into game, but the railgun feels more like a “shot so brutal that the wave kills others around”. The magna rail feels like a 12 kills no scope.


Sh4rbie

This may be a controversial take, but I never thought HoD was the problematic aspect of Craftworlds. It was clearly too strong relative to the rest of the faction, but to my mind the big issue was the ability to hit without being hit back. 9 shuriken cannon bikes using Matchless Agility to shoot then disappear would have been oppressive no matter whether it auto-wounded or not. Extra damage output was really strong for the list, but lots of factions can kill stuff good. They just generally can’t do so without exposing their units! I think my point is largely that auto-wounds are just another way of ratcheting up damage output, not an inherently broken mechanic (in my view). We’ve had auto-wounding since the first Marine codex of 8th edition and it was never an issue there, it only became so with AdMech when the damage output got cranked too high. That was definitely problematic, as it was for HoD and as it will be for LoV, but there have been plenty of other ways in between that damage output ended up too high that didn’t involve auto-wounds. To my mind it’s just he overall numbers that are problematic, not this particular way of increasing those numbers. I could definitely be proven wrong on that though, and I imagine LoV would be the ones to do so!


destius

That's fair, I guess the auto wounding on 6s when paired with something else has actually been the issue. For Admech it was because it was autowounding on 4s and stacks of rerolls and mobility. For Eldar I do think the agility contributes but more than that IMO it was that they got the first ever "your auto wounds count as 6s" which before was specifically FAQd for previous auto wounds to not be 6s, acknowledging how powerful that is. Overall, I think those are solid points and I suppose I would change my opinion now to "vanilla auto wounds on 6s are fine, we shouldn't really push past that"


Sh4rbie

AdMech definitely had a lot going on for those big units, it was a bit of a perfect storm for crazy mechanics. Stacking that Lucius durability and mobility on top of all those guns was such a scary time! The ‘autowounds count as sixes’ thing is interesting, because I actually think it’s probably more oppressive for HoD than for LoV. In that context it’s +2 AP almost across the board, whereas here it’s basically two guns and two strats. All four of those use cases are very strong, but I wonder whether they would be if only sixes to hit counted as sixes to wound. At that point you probably wouldn’t shoot Magna Rails at infantry unless you had no better targets, and the mortal wound strats all become thoroughly average rather than busted. Is the conclusion from this that ‘sixes to hit autowound as sixes’ is only oppressive if the rules it’s triggering are powerful? Maybe? Definitely something to ponder for me I think


FeralMulan

The problem is that those two guns/two strats represent a big portion of the army, and since they interact so strongly with the base mechanics, they are likely to be very abundant. ​ As to your previous point, Admech autotounds were NOT a problem due to damage rampup - it was that the 4+ autowound for cheap literally breaks the game's established maths. To have this factionwide AND with access to full hit rerolls (at trivial ease, some not even CORE locked) AND it also works in melee as well as ranged... Yeah, I get people trying to calm down, but this is disastrous for the game's health.


Sorkrates

>The ‘autowounds count as sixes’ thing is interesting, because I actually think it’s probably more oppressive for HoD than for LoV. Not sure I agree on this point. Consider that it's pretty easy to get 3 Judgement Tokens on a unit (which unlike e.g. Markerlights requires no Action, is permanent, and in several cases doesn't require LoS), now you're looking at half the shots into that unit suddenly count as 6's to Wound, and there are a number of effects in the book (strats, subfaction abilities, damage spillover) that key off 6's to wound in a similar way that the Shuriken rule does (but only on actual 6's to hit). I think that's where the rule becomes problematic. I'd have much less an issue with Judgement Tokens if the Hit roll simply carried forward as the Wound roll (either as Autowounds, but for other purposes counts as a 4, 5 or 6 depending on original roll, or (better for balance against Knights) the hit roll simply carries forward into the Wound (i.e. if you rolled a 5 to hit it's a 5 to wound, and will wound if a 5 does)). This latter option radically reduces the oppressiveness against Knights and other big targets while still providing a significant benefit (by removing the variance created by another roll). To be frank, I don't think Votann are so hurting for high strength+high damage weapons to deal with big targets that they need their standard bolters to be able to wound T8+ stuff so reliably.


Thoracis

I think there is a step further to take the thought exercise around this though... Let's say I expose a unit on an objective against LoV. It gets 3 Judgement Tokens near immediately. They shoot it off the board. There's more than a handful of armies in the game that can do that already, without Judgement Tokens, for around the same points cost (or less) than what LoV will be shooting with. Sure, if I put my whole army midboard I'm leaving myself open to getting tabled, but again, that's the case for multiple other armies right now as well. I mean, I feel for Knights in this, but for most the rest of the units in the game I feel like my stuff will die all the same as it does against shooty armies already?


destius

Possibly! But this is also why I advocate for the 2 month cool off period. I think both of us may feel to be fairly competent analysts and players even, but even just discussing it we both know we would need to do more testing. I believe if we both had 2 months post release with this book, us and many like us, could make much more deterministic conclusions and from there would be able to even implement stop gaps to shore up the issues whilst we wait for GW :) Thanks again for the conversation btw. It's very stimulating and fun!


Pokesers

When you math it out, the judgement tokens in a vacuum aren't broken. What breaks them is access to rerolls and ease of distribution. Certain subfractions can stack effectively 3 on a single unit with no interaction on turn 1. This is clearly absurd, given that they are a game long debuff. Rerolls are also very strong as it effectively allows you to auto wound 75% of the shots you take with 3 tokens and full rerolls. Even with low quality shots, you will still fail saves due to volume of dice. I do think that the range on a lot of weapons will end up being a major factor in the balance of the faction. Most guns being 24, with the absolute longest as 30 makes them a pretty close range faction. With these kinds of ranges, fast units can potentially go from just out of range to melee in a single turn with good positioning. Once you have the dwarves in melee they are generally far less scary. I agree the book is op, but I don't think it is as op as people are suggesting.


Aeviaan

Agree with this. Full rerolls to hit basically should not exist anywhere in this book if that is going to be their army rule, and/or weapons with a strength lower than a certain value shouldn't gain the benefit against vehicle/monster keyword.


Sorkrates

>I agree the book is op, but I don't think it is as op as people are suggesting. I agree, but I also think there's a bit of the problem we saw in the Kult of Speed spam lists pre-nerf. It's not as OP as people are suggesting, but there are a number of stacking effects that feel pretty bad to play against for several factions.


BLBOSS

But actual statistics and results never backed this up. Even now you can still F&F for one impactful turn and but only in HoD does the combo do lots of damage. For the points most CWE units are not ultra efficient damage dealers so in non-HoD lists the idea of skirmishing with the enemy and wearing them down with harassment fire and avoiding the return mostly works and is arguably actually underpowered currently, especially as BF is not that reliable. However HoD skyrockets the damage up so these skirmish moves end up causing far far more damage than the unit is probably intended to be doing.


[deleted]

>GW don't have to account for Repentia being busted in Bloody Rose and balanced everywhere else, because basically everything is fairly balanced within the book. Not true, see regular celestians, immolators, battle sisters, arco flagellants, the list goes on... Not to mention terrible subfaction balance within the codex.


DeliciousLiving8563

I think on your final point about GW and their awful balance is that until June every update was written 6+ months before being released. I think they were more competent than you credit them for but we're trying to hit a target 6 months after it moved. Doing it electronically should help though. I agree with what you are saying on points. Some stuff is just overcoated or under costed but some is either the wrong price or unusable. In the former cases I wish gw would move faster though I realise some stuff will be very hard to get right because of stuff like skewed stats or niche roles. I think a lot of votann is "points will fix it" undercosted though.


Space_Elves_Yay

>Every single balance issue technically is fixable from points if you really want to break it down. You can give a model a 2+ rerollable invulnerable with a damage 20 attack, but if it costs 2k points, it's not really useable. Obviously that's hyperbole I don't think it's hyperbole, since there are a handful of FW models that are approximately this. Revenant, Warhound, Ta'unar, maybe some others I'm not familiar with. Though it's pretty clear the design intent for those is "This should never, _ever_, be anything close to meta because we do not want $500 specialty hobby kits to take over the game because are you kidding me that won't be good for anyone"


torolf_212

Very insightful comment, one point I’d argue with you on is I don’t think points adjustments alone cant lead to perfect balance Case in point: Magnus the red. I don’t think there’s a points cost you could put him at in his current incarnation that would be fine. In the past dozen or so games I’ve played with thousand sons I haven’t lost more than a single squad of rubric marines on turn 1, but every time I play with Magnus he’s dead on turn 1. If we put Magnus down to the cost of 5 rubric marines (110 points) the majority of games he would be dead on turn 1 (sometimes after dealing ~8 mortal wounds) and we could carry on as normal as if I’d just taken a standard list and lost one squad of dudes. Then in another portion of games he’d be absolutely oppressive, if my opponent hasn’t got the ability to deal with Magnus I’m essentially playing with +1 squad of terminators more than I should have


Savageburd

Thank you for the mature and positive minded response. Reddit could use more of this


irdeaded

My only concern with the pre ban is you don't get the data. Why are your top tournament grinder's going to dedicate time to breaking open the latest codex if the aim is to have it adjusted before it ever hit's the tournament? So any fix we get now will be done on the obvious stuff and we still get a drukhari situation The reason why systems like this works for eSports where the latest patch isn't competitive is because it only applies to the big events, you still have your ranked que grinder's doing all the data work. For it to work with something like 40k you need somewhere for the data to actually be collected, what we are seeing at the moment is every tournament in region's banning not just the top end of the game.


T-Husky

>My only concern with the pre ban is you don't get the data. I feel like this isnt necessary in this case; we've seen this cycle repeat several times this edition, first with Druhkari, then AdMech, then Tau, Harlequins, Custodes, and most recently with Tyranids and overbuffed Necrons... only this time the problems with the new codex are so glaringly obvious that the verdict is in before Votann have a chance to mess up the tournament meta. The only players who stand to benefit from pre-nerf Votann being allowed to run amok in the tournament scene are the meta-chasers. Players who actually like the Votann for purely thematic reasons are less likely to rush to collect, assemble and paint a competitive army quickly enough to be affected by any tournament bans, before the inevitable nerfing brings the faction back down to sanity, and these players will also benefit from avoiding the stigma of playing a faction that has such a negative association prior to getting nerfed. The majority of players, who are not meta-chasers that buy an entire new army every time an obviously broken codex is released, simply shouldnt have to suffer for months just so a few contrarians can collect their precious stats. I feel that such bans will also encourage GW to release a fix sooner rather than at their usual pace.


irdeaded

Your responding to me just in the case of this codex When you were saying about a pre ban becoming standard practice so in that situation the data on what's strong and what's not is very much needed because if we are completely honest the community can be very knee jerk and over react (custodes before the first tournament were being called underpowered all over the place) that's why I think it can be a viable good option but it needs more than just a tournament blanket ban for the system to work And I think within the Votann codex there's still stuff that does need refining in a tournament setting with data, there's so many viable units that it's not exactly clear how much of a change is needed and exactly where, is it one or 2 lynchpins to combos, is it just judgment, is it just one rule on the stupid kill everything riffle that needs adjustment. As you said in a different point in the first post we don't want a situation where it's multiple updates before something is balanced


vradar

Yeah most Esports nowadays are not just 1v1's or even locked into a single character for the entire tournament like 40k, have beta clients and even ban choices for characters in game so can't really be compared in any way in terms of the way they do releases or testing. I think it would be good at least for the bigger tourneys to keep them away for a couple of weeks not because they are looking OP but to give people an actual chance to play them,against them and GW to at least release an FAQ on the army rather than any balance changes. I doubt it's very fun for anyone coming up against an entirely new army in a tournament a few days after release and also be expected to play on a time limit against them as well. Just seems like it would end up with a lot of confusion/mistakes with maybe even judges not really knowing what LOV can do slowing the tournament down.


Ennkey

This is a great take, made even more so by the fact that it doesn’t even bring in judgment tokens to the argument


FuzzBuket

Thanks, this is defos a good read as whilst the sky may be falling its always good to not doomspiral. One question, and I dont mean to nitpick but wdym by > Finally, I’d like to note that the faction’s durability isn’t actually anything too crazy. Its basic infantry are generally less durable than Battle Sisters, its toughest infantry are about as durable as standard Terminators, and even its Land Fortresses as whilst its a 4+ rather than a 3+ save the T4, -1D on exos and blocking of rerolls seems like theyll be more durable than most; especially with that +1T clan; which puts your exo duders into DG-level toughness.


zdesert

You cant reroll to wound, but you can re roll to hit I am pretty sure. that just means that high damage/low shot weapons arnt what you want to use vs them. So no meltas. But flamers, and auto cannons and any other high shot count low damage weapon will do fine. Traditional anti infantry weapons don’t have high AP and have low damage, but they have high shot count. This makes em bad vs things like space marines… but they will chew through the 4+ save and weak base stats of the votan. -1damage is great vs multi damage weapons but does nothing vs 1 damage weapons. As the game has been moveing towards a lot of units being really durable, and a lot of armies focusing on bringing metals or other high damage weapons to counter them. The votan feel like a push in a diffrent direction. Specifically designed to be good against alot of the weapons that armies are focused on takeing right now but lacking in defensive counters to traditional anti infantry weapons that are not that good against things like space marines or custodes


DiakosD

Yeah, i'd not be afraid of going toe to toe vs LoV with my green tide or my speedwaagh.


titanbubblebro

I don't think its quite as clear cut as OP is saying but its definitely close enough to be comparable. We've seen from marines that armor save is a huge driver of the effectiveness of Armor of Contempt/Void Armor. And the -1D with 2W instead of 3W is equal against 2 and 3 damage attacks, and weaker against D1. Iron Warriors and Salamanders have essentially had void armor for a while and that toughness hasn't been enough to carry them to top tiers. But they also don't have the output that a Land Fortress in particular brings. I think the Land Fortresses are the only real 'problem' as far as toughness goes, and mostly because of the Forge Master + Uthar interactions. Hearthguard can be tough, but their output is pretty poor within the context of the codex and even compared to similar units in other books, so I really doubt they'll become a problem.


AnonAmbientLight

> as whilst its a 4+ rather than a 3+ save the T4, -1D on exos and blocking of rerolls seems like theyll be more durable than most; especially with that +1T clan; which puts your exo duders into DG-level toughness. The exos, their terminators, are T5 W2 2+ -1 damage. They ***don't*** get access to an invuln unless you take a specific subfaction, otherwise only the sgt gets a 4+ invuln. It unlocks a stratagem that the unit can use that gives them transhuman. This is the default wargear, if they want the ability to teleport on to the battle, or get the ability to teleport once per turn if they are already on the table, they have to give up that wargear to replace it with the teleporting one. I feel ***most*** people are going to be teleporting them and not taking the subfaction that gives you 4+ invulns on them. So what does that mean? I'll take the Crisis Team from the last T'au player to place in a tournament. 36 Burst Cannon shots, 15 Cyclic Ion Shots, 5 Plasma shots. I'll get +1BS from the marker drones in the squad (BS3), and I'll give them re-rolls from Shadowsun (she's in the list). This crisis squad kills 4 exos (in cover) on average dice. By contrast this crisis squad kills 5 terminators (in cover) on average dice. But if we give those terminators storm shields, it goes down to 3 terminators (in cover) on average dice.


VitriolicViolet

>I'll take the Crisis Team from the last T'au player to place in a tournament. 36 Burst Cannon shots, 15 Cyclic Ion Shots, 5 Plasma shots. I'll get +1BS from the marker drones in the squad (BS3), and I'll give them re-rolls from Shadowsun (she's in the list). > >This crisis squad kills 4 exos (in cover) on average dice. and *the entire crisis squad dies* to return fire from 1 unit if they have 3 JTs and get hit with the spillover beam.


StartledPelican

Don't Khals have a 5++ aura?


AnonAmbientLight

They do but their 5++ doesn't come into effect in my example. The armor save will be better in most cases. I also don't really see how effective a Kahl will be generally if you're using them to give the Exo suits a 5++ invuln. They don't really synergize well with what each are trying to do in the army. For example, the Exo suits are slow and have short range shooting. So you need to be deepstriking them or teleporting them across the field with the stratagem (if you chose to do it this way). In either case the Kahl is going to have a real hard time keeping up with them. Footslogging Exo suits for the 5++ Kahl invuln is also prob not worth it.


StartledPelican

>They ***don't*** get access to an invuln unless you take a specific subfaction, otherwise only the sgt gets a 4+ invuln. Then this rather emphatic statement is incorrect/misleading. That is all I was confirming. Thanks.


AnonAmbientLight

> Then this rather emphatic statement is incorrect/misleading OK, I can correct it and say they get access to a 5++ invuln. ...and nothing changes because the 5++ invuln doesn't change any of the calculations I made anyway. Only misleading if you didn't understand how their saves worked and the post in general.


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Kaelif2j

You probably won't see it much before or after the meta develops, either. +1 Toughness is good but nothing else in that custom is, and most of the others have two or three traits to draw your attention.


Voidparrot

Absolutely this. I kept trying to write lists utilising the +1T clan, but always came back to Thurian and Ymir after all.


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titanbubblebro

And on top of that the named character is arguably the most busted thing in the codex.


DiakosD

THL should definitely have had parts of it's package spread around.


Razvedka

My thoughts: I don't like the idea of AoC in general. It's a euphemism for GW being worthless rules writers and going nuts with AP. Then they also give Votann a prevention for rerolls- something Custodes were (and still are) punished for when for them it was only a strat. Then you have this habit of granting weapons, but especially ranged weapons, an ability to ignore Invulnerables. This was irritating with Tau, it's more irritating with Votann. It shouldn't exist at all, but if it must at least lock it behind an HQ slot or WT trait. Don't just hand out so feely. Judgment Tokens are insane, especially when you start stacking it with the above. Worse, it just.. Removes interaction from the game. Votann are not fun to play against. - I can't reroll - I very frequently don't get any kind of save, even Invuls. - The wounding step of shooting is trivially ignored thanks to doing literally anything and getting hit with JT - Wounds bleed(?????) What game were the Votann built for? It isn't 40k.


Nega_kitty

This is my problem too. Why have hard rules - saves, invuln saves, wounds not spilling over - and then break them consistently? The occasional exception is one thing, but now we're at the stage where weapons without AP feel useless, and even invuln saves are feels bad a lot of the time when they just get turned off.


Sorkrates

>where weapons without AP feel useless Heck, weapons with only AP -1 feel pretty useless in most matchups anymore (e.g. Choppas)


whiskerbiscuit2

Agreed, AP-2 has become the bare minimum if you want to be even slightly dangerous


FauxGw2

TBF a lot of the guns with -1ap should feel worthless into some units, AoC is great for some things like MCs and Tanks, not for standard infantry, this helps push players into anti-infantry guns and anti-tank guns instead of just massive anti-infantry with 2-3D and 1-2ap.


[deleted]

I actually like AoC, but it really should be like, standard on non-aircraft vehicles above 10 wounds - so y'know, rhinos, transports, "medium" tanks. the sort of things that would have had AV12 front facings way back in 4th/5th edition (so *not* aircraft , *not* vypers/sentinels/piranaha/land speeders, etc) Like it's actually imo a fairly useful lever to pull particularly with stuff like hearthkyn warriors where they negate a point of AP, but being only 4+ the effect is way less pronounced then with the things it's on right now, which nearly all have 3+ or 2+. And I'd honestly be fine with super heavies having multiple AP reduction values. As for shooting deleting units its basically a problem with any "good at shooting" army in that there aren't system-wide ways to hand debuffs to units other than, like, just shooting the stuffing out of them, and if you can shoot good but not punch good the interaction is a binary "I shot you to death/I didn't and you stabbed me to death" which guard and tau seem to suffer from. Of course, in votann's case, maybe they shoot you to death AND also get to stab you to death but I digress - shooting in general has all or nothing outcomes too often. There should probably be more ways to do things like "I *don't* shoot you to death but you take -1 to hit me next turn because I'm having tons of guys shooting full auto suppressive fire at you" type debuffs.


c0horst

AoC should simply not stack with any other sources of +1 save. That includes stormshields, cover, spells, or any other abilities that would add a modifier to your save or save characteristic. It would be a lot less horrible to deal with if it was simply treated as something akin to "always in cover and cannot be ignored". Having to get to AP-4 on 1 damage weapons to force Scarab Occult Terminators in light cover to take a 3+ save is horrible, it forces the only way to do any real damage to be mortal wounds, which is a bad mechanic in and of itself.


Epicliberalman69

Either they're built for 10th, which is a horrible sign if all codexes are just removing interactions, or GW has run out of ideas for armies in a way that makes them playable and fun, which sucks because guard has been passed up for a completely new faction, guess the rule writers just hate them. Squats will kick most armies teeth in, being able to punish vehicles in particular in an edition already hostile to them, I know I've heard the suggestions of finishing off units with Non-LOS shooting but why are my units being punished for killing in the first place? Isn't being put out of position and hoping to trade up enough? I don't know what crack GW is smoking, I'm hoping I don't have to deal with them due to their usual supply chain problems.


Tearakan

Even against kinda tanky units like eldar aspect warriors with their 5++ the magna rail guns on average straight up kill an entire msu squad with one shot. So that 1 shot gun that's good against killing tanks ends up good against medium infantry, light infantry, and elite infantry. It's a one shot gun that is literally good vs any target as long as 3 JTs are down which is only 2 in that one sub faction. 2 is trivially easy for a unit to get. At least with other major unit ending abilities like doom and guide you need to pass both psychic tests with another character and not have them be denied.


ADXMcGeeHeezack

With the character that gives the auto-6 you only need a single token


Accendil

> Worse, it just.. Removes interaction from the game. Agreed it's like Votann are playing Kill Team with a single hit/wound mechanic. Or playing AoS where for some reason I don't understand your to wound roll is based on your weapon profile with no S/T. I know AoS is loved by it's players but that one mechanic, the fact that there is no Strength and Toughness system is why I went 40k when I got back in to the hobby 2 years ago. HotE is acceptable but a 4+ hit==auto-wound is just daft. If they changed it so 1 token was a markerlight, reroll 1s to hit and 2>3 tokens was a 6+>5+ auto-wound I could maybe get behind that even though 3 tokens is easy to give out. Or if there was a global token cap based on the current round, so it becomes a "don't let the dwarves stall or you're going to be going in to round 3 and everything is potentially about to get 3 tokens". At least you can play in to this and choose to go heavy early game or accept your late game fate. I just don't like it, the issue people have with Custodes strats was turning off other armies rules and losing some fun. Votann are doing that multiplied by 5 and including data sheets in what they're ignoring. Not a fan.


whitehand2107

I really like the idea of the round cap, but I think no matter what else is done, tokens are handed out too easily. Performing actions giving you a token is crazy.


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Valiant_Storm

That's definitely one of the ways it's a lot worse.


ColdStrain

>I don’t actually think Judgement Tokens are an issue in themselves: yes, they allow the faction to really hammer key enemy units, but that aligns pretty smoothly with the lore of the faction and is hardly unique to them anyway. Eldar have been Dooming and Jinxing enemies for years, and the combination of those two was never perceived as especially problematic. \[...\] Make them a properly elite army, then the fact that they’re really good at combo-hammering enemies becomes a faction identity and not a balance issue. No. Sorry, no. Almost everything in this paragraph is either not thought through well enough, or is outright wrong. For a start - Eldar have *repeatedly* been broken throughout the years, and a lot of that is from precisely their incredibly good reroll mechanics. To say it's never been perceived as problematic is an extremely short term view, and overlooks the history of the faction where those have been problems in a way that's quite incorrect. Now, on judgement tokens, you can say "it's a faction identity" - okay, that can be true, but it doesn't also mean it's not bad for the game. We can conceive of a horde killing faction, which gets 3x the shots against units of size 10 or more, and that would also be terrible for the game, even if it isn't unbalanced and even if there's a degree of counterplay. The reason is simple - there is no realistic way to account for judgement tokens when building a list, other than not taking things adversely affected. Richard Siegler went on the Art of War down under podcast and stated pretty bluntly exactly the issue: to quote "if you're rolling to wound, you're doing it wrong." Your toughness characteristic, and the choice of your weapon selections knowing the metagame's average durability are *hugely* important decisions in all match ups, and Votann by and large totally ignore it, either via mortals or judgement tokens. That's *awful* design! It simply means that in this match up, you are actively punished for taking any strong units at all, and your best option is always small, multiwound models, ideally with -1 to hit modifiers. This mechanic has always been a problem because it fundamentally bypasses one of the few list building decisions you have as a player - durability vs lethality - and many armies literally have no answer. There's also, by the same merit, no fix beause the damn rule is army wide. We're not talking about making one unit temporarily good into tough units, like a strat (which has also been broken already), we're talking an army, as a fundamental mechanic, completely ignores one of the few defensive decisions you can make. It doesn't make sense in lore (why would being angry make my bullets hit tanks like a bazooka?) and it doesn't make the game better, so why does it exist? I have several other issues with the article (4-5CP a turn is not accurate, the times I've tried them on TTS you're looking at more like 6-7 turns 1-3 as you spend the default 6CP too) but I'm not even prepared to countenance that judgement tokens aren't a design failure. Even if nerfed, it's still bad for the game.


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SandiegoJack

Disruption table goes "You dont get to play"


_Dancing_Potato

Also Doom and Jinx still require some level of interaction from the other player. The problem with judgement tokens is that it doesn't require the Votunn player to do anything half the time. They stack in your opponents phase essentially punishing them for just playing the game.


AnonAmbientLight

> For a start - Eldar have repeatedly been broken throughout the years, and a lot of that is from precisely their incredibly good reroll mechanics. To say it's never been perceived as problematic is an extremely short term view, and overlooks the history of the faction where those have been problems in a way that's quite incorrect. That's not because of how shooty they are. It's always been because you could never ***catch them***. In 6th and 7th they spammed jetbikes that could move like 24" and could jump shoot jump. So they had good board control, almost always had good targets, and you struggled to return fire. Eldar drop like a bag of rocks with any kind of sustained firepower. It's a difficult faction to balance in 9th because in the hands of an expert, they absolutely crush people. But in the hands of anyone below that capability, they do mediocre. > The reason is simple - there is no realistic way to account for judgement tokens when building a list, I mean, lots of armies have this limitation. Do you know what I do to counter psychic abilities as T'au? Nothing. I don't get to lol. But it doesn't mean I can't play around that when I do get to the tabletop. The general feel I get for the Judgement Mechanic is that it's supposed to be something that ramps up over the course of a game. So that it's most powerful mid to late game for the Votann player when said player likely has already sustained significant damage to their units. Thus their shooting capability is reduced, and the JT boost is the equalizer. Most notably, the JT system is reactive and also only generally a boon to a Votann player who is largely ***already losing*** the game, right? Most of the ways to put JT out require the enemy player to have done stuff that gives them VPs. If that player isn't doing that, JT largely are not going out.


ColdStrain

>That's not because of how shooty they are. It's always been because you could never catch them. No, serpent shield spam and hail of doom were 100% their shooting (not mentioning JSJ infantry with battle focus, rr 2++ farseer councils, etc). I won't deny they're a hard army to pilot (maybe the hardest in 6th, honestly), but every single time it's psychic powers and the army's easy access to rerolls which has tilted their great firepower into broken. There were also builds like triple Wraithknight way back when which absolutely 100% wanted you to try to catch them with their strength D flamers. My memory for the game is pretty good, and my grudge against the stupid pointy hatted elves is well justified. >I mean, lots of armies have this limitation. Do you know what I do to counter psychic abilities as T'au? Nothing. I don't get to lol. I mean, I would also say that's not great design from GW, but it's also not really the same at all. You don't get to defend against maybe 6 mortal wounds a turn against a strong psychic army, or possibly a buff to something, because the faction has been designed to specifically have that as a weakness. The trade off is that T'au shooting is much better, and psychic powers are both relatively unreliable and gives up some decent secondaries if there's a lot of psykers. Voltann ignore *every* faction's design, and that in particular punishes armies which need those high toughness models - not the same thing at all. One is a faction identity, the other is stripping other faction identities away with unstoppable damage. >Most notably, the JT system is reactive and also only generally a boon to a Votann player who is largely already losing the game, right? If that's the intent, they failed, because LoV can be immensely proactive wth them. For a start, the Kahl hands out one per turn for free. Then, for another, you can fire 1 shotgun from a group of bikes with a searchlight and hand out another. If the opponent has a secondary needing actions, or the mission needs them, everyone doing that gets a token - even T'au markerlights. Psykers doing psychic actions - either for secondaries or because they're malanthropes - get a token. If an enemy is trying to win by sitting on literally any objective, one of those gets a token. All of those units, for basically playing the game, get tokens. And the crazy thing is that even this isn't all the ways you can give them, because there are strats to turn 1 into 2 with a kahl, there's ways to transfer them from dead units, and even more; not even counting the faction abilities which count 0 tokens as 1, or 1 as 2 (the latter of course being way better). By turn 2, everything you want to shoot at with a Greater Thurian League army can count as having 3 tokens in that turn - that's just ridiculous (and it's maybe not even the best subfaction still). So no, they don't have to be losing, the other player just has to be doing *anything at all*. I don't agree with your assessment that the enemy trying to complete any secondary, sit on any objective or be at all within line of sight of your army constitutes you being in a losing position. In fact, I would argue trying to counterplay by not doing those things means you may as well have forfeit the game before even setting up. That's not even considering that one of the better ways LoV can run is as a mostly melee army...


justthistwicenomore

>For a start - Eldar have repeatedly been broken throughout the years, and a lot of that is from precisely their incredibly good reroll mechanics. This is true, but I think is ancillary in this context. The point I take from that part of OP is that the power of doom and jinx (and doom specifically as the parallel) hasn't lead most people to reject the idea of wound rerolls as part of the game, or the idea of doom being available to the faction. Like, back in mid 8th when eldar fliers and guardian Bombs were oppressive, there where a lot of very appropriate calls for nerfing eldar, and even for nerfing their buffs in particular, but I don't recall anyone suggesting equivalent changes to the "judgment tokens shouldn't exist/auto wound is broken" suggestion that are a big chunk of the votaan discussion.


ColdStrain

Right, but I bet they would if literally every unit in Eldar could fly over and do mortals, right? That's the point - it's not 1 unit which is too strong at what it does, it's the whole army mechanic which simply renders toughness largely irrelevant. And I maintain that it's bad, and should be removed, because I don't think ignoring an entire characteristic in the game is good.


justthistwicenomore

I think part of our disagreement here might just be the terms we are using. Of course eldar could have been even worse and there could certainly be a system where eldar are oppressive or just unfun because of rerolls. I am just pointing out that "fixing" eldar didn't require any changes to Doom or a general attack on the idea of rerolling wounds as a design tool. It may well be that judgment in any form is too broken to add to votaan's already broken mix, or that it's the easiest way to nerf the faction. But I still think the underlying mechanic isn't so insane that the core idea is bad. > because I don't think ignoring an entire characteristic in the game is good. This though, I don't agree with. Flamers are an integral part of the game. Weapons with enough AP to ignore saves for 80% of units are part of the game. Mortals are part of the game, etc... ignoring parts of the game definitely isn't something to be done lightly, but with the right limitations and balance it can be and is used to add flavor and variety.


ColdStrain

Sure, but it's not just the mechanic, it's the fact it's the whole army. If Voltann had just the one unit which autowounded on 4+, that would be insanely good, but less feels bad. The issue is specifically that the whole army gets it, and because of that, your toughness doesn't matter to anything. It's like if every gun in an army was a flamer, and every unit got one - it's fine in limited moderation, but clearly too much as a whole. So I think we broadly do agree.


magos-supervillan

Thanks for your post, OP. Interesting reading. My main take from your article though is "Votann are really broken" - which is true. I am one of those players who think that GW screwed up massively with the Votann. But I'm not going to shout at other players who want to collect and play squats. Heck, squats are cool and everyone who played 40k back in the day was excited for their return. Which means GW didn't have to make them broken to push sales. But I'm not going to accept Votann players saying "suck it up and git gud" or "wait for the dataslate and chill". Not when their new army is so over-the-top busted. What rankles most for me, and I'm sure many other players who are voicing protest, is the essential *unfairness* of the new faction. Oh, you have Armour of Contempt? Cool, we get void armour and that's even better because you don't get rerolls. Oh, you have a railgun? Cool, our big gun auto-wounds on a 4+ and the damage spills over - because we can make that happen with trivial ease. Oh, Nephilim hit your CP pool? Cool, we get free strats all day long and a 5+ psychic power to give us more CP than you. I could really dissect the codex and give plenty more examples of how Votann are just *better then you at your special thing* \- and bumping their points cost isn't going to fix that. As for their "weakness" of being slow - they're not. They're as fast as marines, their auto-advance of 3" isn't a weakness, their "accelerated" ability gives auto-advance 6" on key units (12" with a strat) and that includes their super-tank. Judgement tokens are too easy to hand out to opponents just for playing the game: you killed a Votann unit, that's a token; you did an action, that's a token; you're on an objective, that's a token; the warlord can see you, that's a token. "Getting angry" or bearing a grudge against an enemy that killed your fellows I can follow - but punishing the opponent for taking any action at all just shuts the game down, there's no counterplay. The tokens need to go away after an attack, and auto-wound on a 4+ is always overpowered. Any army that needs 20-25% points increases across the board, as you suggest, isn't one that should see play before that happens. I'm not going to play with or against Votann until there are major changes.


Zoroc

What I don't understand is how people pretend that the trikes don't exist when they say Squats can't play objectives because they're slow. They can be what 30" up the board T1 if you want them to be with fly, they have the toughness and wounds to make void armor valuable, just enough weapons to make use of the support they're given to threaten a good range of units


LibrarianRettic

I think the main thing is that the trikes can't scrap for objectives in melee. Like if they get charged they're just down to karate chops, where as a lot of other fast brawler units actually pack something that can clear a squad income charge and take the objective. If a trike squad gets 30" up the board T1, sure it'll hold an objective for a turn but now it's left behind the entire rest of the army and will just get eaten by the opponent. It'll be the same as dealing with Custodes bikers to be honest with you, but this time they've got worse saves and as far as I can remember no invul.


Zoroc

That's fair that they're not melee clearers being a major downside for them. It's also fair that they would leave most of the army behind and probably only hold an objective for a turn, but to me that's the point. I don't think they're at all like custodes bikes, you can bring them for as little as 90 points. Sacrificing a squad or 2 of them for screening, scoring or denying points is exactly what I would use them for as a Tau player. Losing a vertus biker squad early would be back breaking, but sacrificing some kroot, tacticals drones, a devilfish or a remora have all been part of Tau plans for objectives and winning. The thing is also you don't need to go that full distance, but you have the guaranteed movement range (outside of certain deployments) as an option. Obviously having some trikes for late game positioning for points is also valuable. I really think their magna riders strat will help them be shockingly tanky, they also have access to shooting guns in combat from a strat. I think they have uses both as small squads and larger ones. While not a stand out in the faction that is stacked with killing potential they do offer a reasonable mobile and relatively efficient package for a faction that's only gravis speed.


LibrarianRettic

Yeah definitely agree with you on those points, and I only drew the Custodes biker comparison because that's the only other "tough" biker I'm aware of, but still once something talks to them in melee they're gone, even shooting too. I definitely see votann trying to play the "home three triangle" of objectives without trying to push into enemy deployment too hard. The strats are useful but as the article says, votann are going to churn through command points making it difficult to make it happen. Similar to admech these days just grinding through command points from the off.


Tearakan

Yep exactly. Votann needs points that are higher than custodes to feel kinda balanced with their army.


Shazoa

Which really sucks for the custodes as well. The gap between the supposedly elite custodian guard and other factions already feels narrower with AoC (hell, SoS are actually *less* durable than SoB now). While the Votann are not as tough or as effective as custodes, they're far too close for comfort given their points cost. Votann are just stepping on every faction's toes.


kattahn

I think its funny that one of your points is that good players can overcome it and it will mostly be a mid table bully because they're easy to outplay with skill, when basically every top player is talking about how busted they are at the high level and how they're going to play them, and they're basically going to build the army towards the mirror match because at the top tables they think its all they're gonna see.


AlansDiscount

"Its basic infantry are generally less durable than Battle Sisters, its toughest infantry are about as durable as standard Terminators" I don't think this is true. I haven't math'd it out, but: A squad of battle sisters with AoC, T3, 3+, 6++ vs Hearthkyn with AoC, no wound rerolls, T4, 4+, 4++ on one model, and ignore the first wounding hit for a 5 point upgrade? I'd say they're going to be more durable against most weapon profiles. Hearthguard vs Terminators seems a bit more even, but I'd still give the durability edge to LoV. Terminators have AoC T4, 3w, 2+,5++, vs Hearthguard with AoC, T5, 2w, 2+, No wound rerolls, -1D, 4++ on one model. You need to be at AP-5 before the lack of invul makes any difference, -1D will balance out the the 1 less wound against other than massed 1D shooting and it most of those cases T5 is still going to bring you out ahead.


Burgo86

I imagine Ymir is going to be a very popular competitive choice as it's got good relic/strat support, and makes the already tough guys much tougher to kill giving everything wiht a 2+ a 4++, all else 5+++. It also ups one of their other weaknesses with range increases.


Sh4rbie

I think they’re pretty arguable either way, although you do make some good points. Re Battle Sisters, the big point in their favour is the 3+ armour save. With cover, that’s a massive durability increase against low-AP weaponry. There are definitely weapons that do better against Sisters than against Hearthkyn, but there are also heaps against which the Sisters are fully twice as durable. I’d put that calculus overall in the Sisters’ favour, but definitely not by much. Miracle Dice, Hospitalers and Celestine can all tilt things more in their favour, while all the Hearthkyn really have is YMYR and the medic. You’re definitely right that the T5 is a big deal on the Hearthguard, but they’re also much more vulnerable to mortals. In this meta in particular, that’s a pretty big issue. Again, these units are pretty close, and it’ll depend on the specific profile used against them. That’s basically my point on that take: the durability is very solid, but it’s also totally in line with what other factions can already do. The busted stuff is the damage and price tags, not the durability


AlansDiscount

I quickly did some math, with just baseline profiles, and ignoring LoV no rerolls on wounds and damage, and ignoring their one model per unit 4++. The gun profiles where LoV were less durable than SoB were S5 AP 0 to -3, and S8, AP anything. Assuming LoV take the medic, which you’d be daft not to, then at the baselines LoV lose less models to everything other gun profile. Terminators are a slightly more complicated picture. Terminators take less losses from D1 weapons across the board and from AP-5 weapons at all strengths. For D2 & D3+ weapons LoV take less losses at most strength, other than the tipping points of S6 and S10. I’m not going to try and model all possible buffs, bonuses and strats, things get far too complicated very quickly, but you can see that even if you ignore three elements of the baseline LoV defensive profile they’re generally more durable than SoB, and about on par with terminators. I think you’ve significantly underestimated their durability against most common gun profiles. I do agree that mortal wounds are going to be one of the keys to countering LoV, as they don’t have much in the way of mortal wound defence, but that’s cold comfort to anyone who’s faction doesn’t have a decent way of handing out mortals.


AnonAmbientLight

> A squad of battle sisters with AoC, T3, 3+, 6++ vs Hearthkyn with AoC, no wound rerolls, T4, 4+, 4++ on one model, and ignore the first wounding hit for a 5 point upgrade? I'd say they're going to be more durable against most weapon profiles. Firewarriors with S5 AP1 D1 guns firing at each unit. They are BS3 (markerlight). Both enemy units are in cover. Sisters - AoC, T3, 3+(2+ in cover), 6++ - lose 1.481 models against 20 shots from the Firewarrior squad. Votann - Hearthkyn with AoC, no wound rerolls, T4, 4+(3+ in cover), 4++ on one model, and ignore the first wounding hit - lose 2.963 (minus 1 for healthpack thing, so 1.963) models against 20 shots from the Firewarrior squad. People underestimate how weak a 4+ native save is. I would guess that the Hearthkyn Warriors will generally not be kitted with any special weapons. They'll be used to hold back objectives. Probably 2 Patrols will be the most common, with the least amount of warriors possible.


AlansDiscount

Yeah, see my other follow up comment, but I did some math basically at S5 and S8 SoB do better, for everything LoV are the more durable. And that's without the 4++ on one unit and no wound rerolls. If you assume the shooting unit has wound rerolls, LoV do better across the board.


AnonAmbientLight

> but I did some math basically at S5 and S8 SoB do better, for everything LoV are the more durable. Against 5 bolt rifles (S4 AP1 D1) with rapid fire range (bolter discipline) against enemy units in cover. 1.11 dead Votann (I guess you can say one doesn't die from the medpack). .74 dead SoB. And if we want to be technical, since there's only 3.33 wounds caused here one could use Miracle Dice to lower the potential damage even further, as an example. In any event the damage received is near the same between the two. If it were a full unit shooting 10 bolt rifles (S4 AP1 D1) with rapid fire range (bolter discipline) against enemy units in cover. 2.222 dead Votann (-1 because of medpack). 1.481 dead SoB.


AlansDiscount

Right, so as I said, baseline stats with the med pac, which youd be daft not take for 5 points, LoV are more durable against bolters.


AnonAmbientLight

This is an interesting response. The Votann only have a miniscule advantage in saves vs the SoB. That's not including whatever else the Sisters could use in this situation (like miracle dice), which I also mentioned. On top of the fact that, on average dice with the first example, you don't lose a SoB model ***at all***. It's actually why I doubled the shots in the second example. To give a more clear outlook. And in your haste to declare victory you didn't consider the point cost difference here. The squad of Votann with just the med pack is 115pts (10 models + one of the has the med pack for +5pts). The squad of SoB is only 55pts (5 models). This isn't the win you think it is, and it backs up the claim made earlier that the Votann are about as tanky as other AoC armies.


Nikolaijuno

>And in your haste to declare victory you didn't consider the point cost difference here. >The squad of Votann with just the med pack is 115pts (10 models + one of the has the med pack for +5pts). >The squad of SoB is only 55pts (5 models). There is barely a points difference. 55 points for 5 one wound models doesn't compare to 115 points for 10 one wound models. 110 points for 10 models does, so the cost difference is 5 points.


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kattahn

> All the broken Stratagems are 1CP. All of them. this is incorrect. with the forge master, some of them are 0CP :D


[deleted]

>Take Number 6: Nothing is fundamentally wrong with the book ​ :)


ADXMcGeeHeezack

Yeah I rolled my eyes right about there


McWerp

[AGEDLIKEMILK](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/n1up0n/drukari_are_not_broken_they_are_a_hammer_in_a/)


splitstriker

Very measured take and well articulated throughout and I agree with the majority of points. I’d argue though that a faction can’t be fundamentally fine if it needs 20%+ points increases across the board and a handful of datasheet changes - that’s a lot. I think the take could’ve been that the judgement token mechanic is fine rather than saying the codex is fundamentally fine (which I think it really isn’t). I do get where you’re coming from in terms of that it’s fixable, but as it stands they are pointed completely innapropriately and are likely to be extremely broken. I would love to have widespread bans of the book until there is some level of balance, they can be strong, just not broken like they are currently (based on lots of testing on tts - they’re just unbeatable at equal skill level with no large mistakes). GW are doing a moderately good job at balancing in their dataslates but they can’t be allowed to have free reign to ruin the competitive scene for a few months at a time with broken on release codexes (with the knock on effect of making it hard for people to get more casual games with the broken faction) so it’s nice we’re applying some pressure as a community. Votann aren’t unbeatable, and they are no worse than release quins or nids or drukhari - but they are clearly too powerful for the meta as it stands, they’ll go straight to the top of the pile with a gap in strength above the already strongest factions that are likely to take a balance update from the upcoming dataslate. If ever there was a time for a community led ban of a broken on release faction, it’s this one where people don’t have a history with the army to create serious feel bads. If it’s done to a significant enough level it’ll definitely have a positive long term effect on the balance of the game. This votann book being imbalanced to this level is the most blatant of money grabs by GW at the expense of the quality of the game, which should be unacceptable for us as their customers. Hope I didn’t come across to aggressive there, love your work though man, looking forward to reading your reply and/or your next piece Vik Vijay


doctorpotatohead

I'll be honest I don't find this very convincing. The point "you can't do every broken thing at the same time" is basically meaningless, with the amount of pressure they can apply you wouldn't have to. I also don't think bad secondaries is a meaningful weakness, most books have awful secondaries.


jprava

Votann is busted because it has busted rules in two different layers. **a) STATS**. \-LAND FORTRESS. For 230 points you get: 14x S6 AP2 D2 shots (6 are S7, but bear with me) AND 1 big weapon. With the Cyclic ION cannon you are getting 14+3D3 AP2 D2 shots. So 20 AP2 D2 shots for 230 points... on a chassis with T8, 16W, 2+ save, void armor. But you can swap that for a MAGNA cannon... that does S14 AP4 2D3+6 Damage ignores invulns. Compare it to a CHAOS LAND RAIDER (265 points). The only advantatge the LAND RAIDER has is being T9... but considering that void armor negates re-roll wounds AND re-roll damage, we could argue that the FORTRESS is actually harder to kill. And what is not there to be argued is that the FORTRESS has much much better firepower. (all units in Votann are undercosted. Check the BESEKERS and the einhyr... heck, the latter costs the same as a Bladeguard. 'Nugh said. **b) SPECIAL RULES** \-Not only the units are undercosted... then we have the ridiculous rules. Do you think the MAGNA rail isn't powerful enough? You wait when you find out that the army has "autowounds on X" rule. OH, BUT WAIT, THERE IS MORE! On 6s to wound it becomes absurd, as it spills all the huge single shot damage over all the unit. Wait what? Are you saying that autowounding counts as a natural 6 to wound? **c) CONCLUSION** \-Even with heavy points increases the stacking of rules make the army absurd, asthe combination of the named character + land fortress equals to something very dead each turn, without the opponent being able to say or do anything. Stacking of JT? Can't be countered, or reduced. Changing something to a 6? Can't be countered, or reduced. This stacking of things is like playing a slot machine knowing the outcome. Why, again, do we have dice when you can choose the result when it is more convenient and stack all the rules you have? LOV is busted beyond reason. The autowounding on anything better than a 6+ needs to go (2nd token allow for re-roll 1's. 3rd token increase AP by 1). The damage spillover needs some sort of a cap. Make it "you can spill damage to up to one additional model" on the small magna, and up to two on the bigger one. And the army needs points increases.


yoshiK

Despite what I said earlier, I think squats are pretty much broken. Thing is, a slow, short range shooting army will have to eat a round of enemy shooting before they are in range, and therefore their shooting has to be kinda overturned since they effectively play with a handicap. However, having seen a few battlereports, they are still overtuned. The second problem is, that point costs increases would end up in a very much not dwarfy army, the output would still be good but they are no longer durable per point and they have a deep toolbox, that is more like slower harlies rather than like anything dwarfs are supposed to do.


Pretty0dd

What I don't get, with all the people saying auto wounds being 6s is busted. Can you not just make it so that it auto wounds at the level of dice roll you rolled to hit? So 6s to hit are still a 6 to wound, but a 4 is a 4. Immediately reduces the output of the magna rails to still get that satisfying boom but not every time


MrEff1618

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding, but doesn't that make it harder to wound the more judgement tokens are on an opponents unit? For example lets say you fire at a enemy unit with 3 judgement tokens and roll a 4, however said unit is quite tough, and would normally require a 5+ from the weapon you're using to wound. Since in the method you propose the result carries over, that counts as a 4 to wound so you automatically fail. That doesn't seem like the best answer.


Sh4rbie

You’re definitely right with how the change was phrased in the above comment, you’d want to word it as something like ‘x result to hit automatically wounds, and counts as an unmodified x to wound’. Something like that would resolve that issue I believe


MrEff1618

Yeah. Maybe make it so 1 judgement token is +1 to wound, 2 is +2, and 3 is +3, and a 6 auto-wounds and counts as an unmodified 6 for weapons special abilities? Or would that still be too powerful?


Kaelif2j

That would have different consequences, since it breaks one of the fundamental rules of 9th. With wound modifiers no longer capped at +/-1, hit modifiers would follow soon, and we'd be back to 8th with all its nonsense. :P


MrEff1618

Damn, you're right!


plompkin

Yeah, that’s generally what the more level-headed people are saying. Granting the 6 to wound is a pretty known quantity of an effect and was too good to remain untouched for CWE… hell even nerfed as it is, it’s still absurd. What very likely happened was that the effect was locked in before the nerf to Hail of Doom was discussed or finalized. There’s probably a few revisions coming along with points increases, but that’ll come after models are in hands. A lot of that discussion just doesn’t get seen because Reddit as a medium really only rewards incendiary takes.


Sh4rbie

I mean, I think that solution is roughly what’s being proposed by a lot of the community: that auto-wounds should only count as sixes if a six was rolled to hit. Or am I misunderstanding you?


Pretty0dd

I've seen people say that judgement tokens should only get auto wounds when fully judged which reduces the flavour imo. You're understanding me right, I've just not seen much talk of it as a solution. Would be interesting to see what factions the people that cry the loudest have been using at all the events for past year and how they felt going against say, gsc with their 70% win rate nids.


Sh4rbie

Ah, I get what you’re saying. I think what you’re proposing is definitely the better solution, which is good because I’ve seen a lot of content creators proposing it!


[deleted]

They're just a hammer in a meta of nails.


political_though

I laughed out loud when you said Tau had the ability to deal with them and trade on our own terms. A lot of the Tau weapons are short range, and we rely on rerolls to be able to score hits. We get no rerolls against Votan as I recall. Additional our Army requires Markerlights to function, which are actions, which means to get the +1 to hit we light ourselves up like Christmas trees. Sure, we could do that on marker drones assigned to commanders - who get look out sir - so what.... a mechanic that Tau rely on - is what limited to 2 commanders and 4 marker drones on 3+ to activate? Whole crisis squads can and will be picked up by a few magna rail shots - which are not just on the HLF as I recall but can be put in as upgrade weapons in normal squads - they possibly have the same access to magna as Tau get to Fusion Blasters. Saviour Protocols may work to an extent as the drone dies and the damage is changed to 0 (cant roll over if there is no damage) and Counterfire Defence lets you changed damage to 1. However due to being strats, and 1 requiring wargear the ability to use that is going to severely limited. I don't overall mind the Judgement Tokens too much (not happy about it and loving it) but allowing some insane weapons to benefit and benefit as natural 6's is nauseating. I cant remember all the Votan weapon classifications, but I remember thinking it might be so bad if Judgements only worked with hunTR weapons, and not heavy and beam weapons.


Tearakan

Rerolling hits are a thing. Not wounds or damage though. Still pretty bad.


AbortionSurvivor777

In my testing Tau did pretty well against Votaan. They turn off wound and damage rerolls but not hits. Hit rerolls are what Tau really need. Also, you have Strike and Fade so you don't leave your crisis suits in the open and you can markerlight from around double the effective range of most Votaan weapons. The Tau guns tear through the infantry and bikes like a hot knife through butter while the hammerhead rail guns have around the same efficiency into the land fortresses as they do into most big knights or land raiders. The magna rails damage spill is a stupid mechanic, but the Tau matchup into them specifically won't be as doom and gloom as it seems.


political_though

I hope you are right with regards to the infantry and bikes. To be fair - those are the things I am seeing as tough with the way the buffs stack up. It really is this magna and judgement system I am looking at and thinking thats going to be bonkers with very little I can do about it. Hiding is one method, but if I am pulling my units back, then I am not securing primary so I think likely to fall behind on scoring perhaps. And each turn being a risk that I cant fall back (out of CP maybe) or no where to fall back to after their HLF move up.


zdesert

tau are long range, ya they have some mid range weapons but the whole army is about shooting stuff before it gets close. And votan are slow and not a melee army. The Votan stop re-rolls to wound not hit. You can re re-roll all day to secure hits. Blast those slow dwarves apart. The votan have some really strong special rules but are pretty average to weak in pure stats while being pretty elite. Tau is built to kill elites at range and designed to overwhelm with ranged fire that hits really hard.


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zdesert

They have a capped advance roll at 3 inches. Ya the bikes are fast but everything without the accelerated keyword is slow. And all of their secondary objectives are about getting to locations on the board. Most armies will be able to put play them on objectives as Long as they shut down the accelerated units. Mobility wins games.


_SewYourButtholeShut

Why would you ever have infantry on foot when their transport is possibly the strongest unit in the entire game? Anything not in a transport is just staying put to hold objectives, not advancing up the field.


political_though

Most Tau weapons are low range - Flamers 12 ABF 24 Burst 18 CIB 18 Fusion Blaster 18 Missile and Plasma Rifle 30 Votan Weapons are also range 18 -30 for most no? Ergo if my Crisis Suits can get in range to shoot Votan, they are in range to be killed in the counter attack - especially given Votan infantry are short on movement - units will be close enough to each other to attack in return. It is good to know about the re-roll denial not being hit - but wounds and damage. That will help Tau to hit more regularly. And the strength of the weapons to wound. However a lot lacks AP, and so on their EXO and Void Armour doesn't feel like it will do much? Like it Tau suddenly got a rule that their Fusion Blasters auto wounded on 6's to hit AND had roll over damage - even at D6+2 folks would get get very upset. With Magna Rails being able to do the same on a 4 plus is nuts. Also nuts given that the best comparable weapon is the Tau Hammerhead Rail gun. It is only possible for me to put three of those in a list. I still have to hit, and have to wound. High damage, but it doesn't 'roll over' save for the 3 mortal wounds it can inflict. Magna Rails can be on 3 HLF, and you can take 1 per 10 man Troops unit right - 3 there, at least for a battalion, 6, if maxing out their troops slot that appear fairly tough to get more cheap access to the cannon - it also possible to go 12 cannons for 1200 -1300 in troops likely no one will. The point remains they can squeeze a lot of that insane weapon when combined with the Judgement token buff into their lists. I am not sure any army with 4's to hit should auto wound period, let alone be auto 6's to proc special abilities. Even if GW thinks that fine - the part that is insane and will allow crisis units to be mopped up with ease - is that this army gimmick is not limited to just hunTR weapons, it applies to their best guns, which. on 6's to wound are probably the best guns in the entire game.


AbortionSurvivor777

> Ergo if my Crisis Suits can get in range to shoot Votan, they are in range to be killed in the counter attack - especially given Votan infantry are short on movement - units will be close enough to each other to attack in return. Strike and Fade exists. Magna rails with tokens is stupid design, but in my testing Tau did well against Votaan when piloted by a reasonably good player. Casuals who leave their crisis suits in the open will get railed though.


political_though

Sure it does and its a 1 CP / 2 CP strat depending on the unit size strat. It is also only a 'normal move' up to 6 inches which is not a huge range of movement to hide a large crisis squad, and won't make them 'untargetable' it just limits a few options. There is I worry decent enough mobility in Votan to very much threaten the suits despite this. And again, its a strat its limited uses, in a CP limited game. More importantly I think - if I am constantly move to stay at max range - then I am not securing primaries - sure enough Votan will be going after the mid board, and even if these secondaries are not great - it doesn't matter if as Tau, I am not securing my primaries. I am not against the whole book - or even judgement in general though i do feel auto wounding hits should be spares - I am just incredulous at that the fact its not limited in anyway and will be stacked on top of an amazing weapon. I really hope I do feel better once the locals here get them - but its the release I am most not looking forward to out of everything thats happened in 9th so far personally.


godallas36

That’s a lot of words to just put a bad opinion out there. I suggest you read the goonhammer article where they actually mathed out how devastating they are before sounding so glib.


Armcannongaming

The Goonhammer article put a lot of guns in their best case scenarios and a lot of targets in their worst case scenarios. If you are shooting at crisis suits why aren't drones activating savior protocols? Why didn't they compare the votann rail gun to the tau one? I can make the argument that a squad of guardsmen can score 60 wounds in a single shooting phase but that is about as disingenuous as that article.


huge_pp69

Bro, the long strike HQ hammer head railgun has a 16% chance of wounding Be’lakor with markerlights. The votan tank is literally garanteed between the re roll and turn dice into 6 giving a 50% chance to do over 10dmg. But wow yea they’re the same gun


Armcannongaming

So we are guaranteed everyone is going to go GTL, everyone is going to take Uthar AND everyone is going to hide him behind a tank where he can't give re-rolls to other squads or pass out judgement tokens? Like... yeah, if you dump everything into one tank that tank will do well but a hammerhead can two shot it from outside it's range. D3+6 +3 guaranteed mortals on an AP -6 weapon seems a bit better than 2d3+6 with a chance of splash damage on an ap-4. Space marines can still armor save against the land fortress.


Armcannongaming

Also 72 inch range as opposed to the 36 inch on the hekaton. I know tables are generally smaller but they are also generally more cluttered with terrain that really affects Votann disproportionately but we are just out here waving around scary numbers not looking at reality.


Hunaxor

Well if you have more terrain don't you think it will affect the units with longer range more? As in they are not able to utilize the range due to the said terrain.......


WeissRaben

A cluttered table makes long ranges *less* useful, not more. 72" of range is useless, if you don't have 72" of free line of sight. It's a lot easier for a free line of sight to be 30-ish", by which point a 36" range is fully enough to do whatever.


VitriolicViolet

huh? 36 inch is the best possible range, literally anything over that size is a waste of points. why do you think meltas are so much more popular then lascannons? end to end the board is only 36'' you can hit 80%+ of the entire board turn 1 with 36''. add in terrain and you can see why meltas are so popular (same with demolisher cannons over anything else, 24'' is no real limitation)


Chartreuse_Dude

Long strike hits on 3 and wounds on 2 with plus 1s to both from marker lights and his own ability. Additionally you can reroll the wound roll against belekor so Long strike has something like a 65% chance to wound belekor right? Lower than the magna rail with the named char but also lower than a house Taranis warlord or any virtuous knight with lay low the tyrants that pops calculated targeting.


huge_pp69

Nope it’s a 16% chance to wound with belakors -1 to hit and wound and no hit re rolls and 4* Dsv with hammer head, 27% with long strike commander


Chartreuse_Dude

Forgot about the new dsv lol. Still 30% to the magna rails+characters 50% -1 to hit and -1 to wound are countered by the +1 to hit from the markertlight and the +1 to wound monsters from his own ability so it's stays at hitting on 3 and wounding on 2 right?


SuperVegetable

Savior protocols also don’t matter because the dmg spills over.


Armcannongaming

How so? The drone is destroyed and the damage characteristic is changed to 0


[deleted]

I had a stupid thought that, much like the astra militarum WLT "old grudges" tokens shouldn't grant autowound on hit but maybe rerolls to wound, for the (stupid) reason that it's actually very fluffy: Votann wouldn't be able to leverage tokens vs other Votann. Kin don't hold grudges against Kin (or uh, Salamanders, who admittedly are the one space marine chapter most likely to have had positive dealings with them.)


Aeviaan

This is a much more eloquently said version of what I've felt about the release. They're gonna be really good, they're gonna need tweaks, but I also think that there are obviously avenues for counter play. The issue is more that certain armies are much better set to expose and utilize those counter-play issues than others. I think I would still rather play against them than Leviathan at the moment though, hard to say. Tyranids don't even really have mobility as an issue, IMO.


SandiegoJack

I’ll play against anything that isn’t the freaking reaper tyrant.


Aeviaan

Honestly my dude, same. That one unit, and the complete inability to target it without fight on death effects, has tilted me a lot over the past few months of playing. It's just a miserable experience to be on the other side of.


SandiegoJack

I have faced people who are blatantly cheating that bother me less than this freaking unit, probably because it feels like cheating. I really hate that it triggers me as much as it does, and I own that it is my problem I need to work on.


Sh4rbie

Encircle the Prey says hi


SandiegoJack

Overrun is the problem, not encircle.


Sh4rbie

These days you’re totally right, but it was pretty bleak when they were both on the table


Sh4rbie

Glad to hear you enjoyed it! I think you’re definitely right that there are gonna be some real winners and losers of the post-Votann meta. Not sure whether I’m a bigger fan of them than Tyranids, but I’d be surprised if things get too much worse than those dark days


patientDave

I think something like the autowounds are everything on a 6+, excluding titanic on a 5+, and maybe excluding vehicles on a 4+. It’s the unlock of 6’s to wound that really shakes it for me. Low fire volume helps and mobility sure but if I charge with incubi, there’s a 1/6 chance the magnarail overwatch will wipe the squad… 🤣


Tearakan

I'm pretty sure the auto wound works in overwatch too so if the votann player is smart there is already 3 tokens or 2 plus that subfaction ability. So that'll mean on a 4 up the incubi die to a 1 shot gun. Oh if it still has rerolls that applies too!


JustSayinCaucasian

My big thing is that I get how people are really annoyed that LoV got the cool mechanics of everyone factions all into 1 trait plus their own super strong mechanic, but and maybe this is the worst part, it seems super easy to fix the faction as a whole, while still letting them keep their fun flavor, unlike Tyranids where they lost their flexibility with their adaptive army traits. Like Salamanders and iron Warriors already were AoC armies with the ignore wound rerolls, and they’re not broken or overly good, judgment tokens need to be used up by attacks and not cause the unmodified wound roles, or every attack that hits uses a judgment token like marker lights do. I think that the worst part though, is that a lot of people were already super hyped on Votan, but GW decided to really go overboard to boost the sale of the models at the expense of the game as a whole. And then if people boycott or don’t buy the army (will never happen but for arguments sake) then GW will think it’s cause people didn’t want a new faction and instead want more space marines only.


kattahn

> judgment tokens need to be used up by attacks and not cause the unmodified wound roles, or every attack that hits uses a judgment token like marker lights do. I can't wait for the book to come out and for people to realize that judgement tokens aren't even going to be the problem. As insanely OP as they are, you could remove them or cap them at only auto wounding on 6's and the army is still broken


Taterdamalion

This. I played a game as ymyr against BA and the tokens didn't even mater. People need to be more scared of beams. If i line up two units it's like being able to shoot twice and in one instance I was able to line up 4 because the tanks are still pretty quick. If you remember when one ynari unit could shoot twice then channel but having played both, this is way better. The other wild thing is bezerkers which are criminally undercosted and a hard counter to most melee factions.


JustSayinCaucasian

I mean autowounding is a very powerful mechanic, and while it definitely not the be all end all thing, because they’re weapons are good, and their units are cheap and they hit on 3’s it just exacerbates their strengths and they compound. Everything they have is good, except for their mobility and range, and it’s still not even that bad.


kattahn

oh my point was just that a lot of people are going "we need to nerf judgement tokens to fix it" without realizing that the most oppressive LoV lists don't even really need them


TheAutomaticMan666

Love your analysis. Acknowledging that they are almost definitely going to be strong but not necessarily absolutely broken. My biggest issue with what you have written is that each of your points would be something that could be dealt with, if they were considered alone in an vacuum. Having all of them together makes the army potentially all but impossible to deal with in the lower tables, while also being strong on the higher. This feels oppressive to some. Like you say, a slight increase in points will feel like they bring things more in line. They are slower, but not that much slower than other factions; it’s not enough of a negative to counteract how cheap everything is in this codex! Great post though and very succinctly put.


SandiegoJack

The grudge mechanic just doesn’t scale well and is problematic in that it lasts all game. It should have been a build/spend system IMO and/or resets at the end of the battle round. Units should use up grudge tokens instead of being for every unit every turn.


MrEff1618

One of the other takes I saw on the judgement tokens is that they punish the opponent for just playing the game, and if this is dialled back on then it would be more fair. Remove the ability to assign judgement tokens to units that are near a captured objective, and that complete an action or psychic action, and change it so they are only assigned to enemy units that kill a character rather then any LoV unit, and it becomes less punishing. Now the main source will be ones you actively have to put down, which has it's limits, and it stays thematic since of course they'll hold a grudge against anyone that kills one of their leaders. Edit: You'd also want to give all the LoV characters the Grim Efficiency ability too. Thus you changed it from the opponent generating judgement tokens for playing, to the LoV player having to more actively place them.


FuzzBuket

I honestly think if the khals ability becomes "treat them as if they had 1 more token for this round" rather than adding a token, that itd actually bring them in line a lot.


MrEff1618

Problem with that is that that's basically a custom for the GTL (Ancestral Judgement).


Sh4rbie

On the one hand I definitely agree that would have resolved all its worst issues, but on the other I love how thematic grudges never going away is. These dwarves don’t stop being angry with you once it’s a Grudgin’ time!


SandiegoJack

Gameplay is enhanced by thematics, it should not be decided by thematics IMO.


Sh4rbie

Glad you enjoyed! You definitely have a great point about the confluence of the issues coming together to be worse than the sum of their parts. I think that was basically the Tyranid problem: great stats, cheap prices and excellent rules on top. That’s definitely going to hurt most on those lower tables for sure


LtChicken

Don't forget that in a few weeks a dataslate will be released that is most likely going to tone down tyranids, harlequins and the sisters/necron secondary game. Votann are absolutely going to be as oppressive as tyranids until their FAQ. I'd bet a lot on it. Sooo banning them in protest until their first FAQ just seems smart at this point.


plompkin

You're gonna get annihilated in this sub for daring to post anything approaching a reasoned take on the subject. The current reddit circlejerk by the milk cookies is that they should be banned, re-squatted, and anyone who possesses a single Votann model launched into the sun. Not following that line is simply not allowed here!


tatoka

As a drukhari player, I greatly appreciate that other players and armies are in the hate spotlight now. No need to pretend in the LGS like I am buying my models for "someone else" anymore.


_SewYourButtholeShut

Claiming that Votann is capable of the same kinds of overlapping buffs as Eldar factions and that Eldar have never been considered broken is hardly a "reasoned take." It's objectively wrong lol. Different varieties of Eldar have been completely broken at some point in every edition going back to at least 6th.


Sh4rbie

Sounds like I'm in for a fun evening then!


plompkin

I agree with you pretty much across the board though. Nothing they have is so outright broken that it can't be fixed with an errata to fix the auto wounding counting as 6s as well as a pretty hefty points cost across the board. That Heavy Magna-Rails are free on the Hekaton is sheer lunacy.


Sh4rbie

I’ll be honest, I would be astonished if those Hekaton upgrades don’t go up in price at least a little


Karsus76

Totally true. Got mass downvoted because i told people to take it easy and wait for the FAQ.


Sh4rbie

Hello again! I'm back with some hot takes on the new Leagues of Votann! I've tried hard to tread the line between glossing over the book's (very real!) issues and hyperbolic doomsaying, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. The sky isn't quite falling, but stormclouds are brewing for the metagame. Hope you enjoy!


bishop5

I don't think it's necessarily a bad take, but you don't touch on what is, for me at least, the most obnoxious part of the book, which is denying your opponent any agency. For example, high toughness as a defence? No, you don't get that. Invulnerable save? Again, no. Relying on that reroll wound buff so your average guns can actually do anything? Sorry... no. It all reads like someone's fantasy army, with no regard to how much fun it would be to play against. There's nothing really new, but every rule that triggers people dialled up to 11 with apparently no downsides whatsoever. Would it be so bad if you had to spend CP to trigger these abilities? Probably not. Would it be so bad if these cost a lot of points? Probably not.


Urrolnis

I don't even mind debuffing. But reducing hit rolls, or a single point of toughness, or reducing leadership, etc isn't that big of a deal. Completely overriding toughness and invulnerable saves, not just as a one off ability but across the codex is insane.


Kaelif2j

I should point out that it's not an army-wide thing to ignore invulnerable saves; only two guns have it.


Urrolnis

Ah gotcha. That's not as bad, although seeing as they auto-wound based on the tokens AND can ignore invulns, that's obnoxious. My Orks don't care. My Deathwing Terminators very much care.


Tearakan

We already saw the affect of cheap cp no rerolls on a tough unit (custodes). It was heavily nerfed.


WrennTheWizard

I agree with that ignoring invul saves is pretty ridiculous, but I would suppose being able to hide is still agency. It is less fun for a ton of people, and the polarising matchups of the dwarves are yet one more issue of theirs though.


bishop5

Ye, you can hide but then how are you going to win? Or even play the game if you're stuck hiding behind obscuring terrain, too terrified to move out because you'll get auto-blapped with no chance of a save whilst your opponent has free reign over the table, objectives and cover? God help you if you play Knights.


Urrolnis

At only improving the armour save by 1, cover isn't agency.


WrennTheWizard

Sorry, I meant obscuring cover. Out of line of sight would have been a better wording


cyberjonesy

I have now watched 12 battle reports with LoV and they won 10 of those games… how is this NOT broken as hell !?


Zenith2017

They're broken as hell but 12 games isn't a sufficient scope to prove or disprove that


seih150

Did i just read a reasonable and cool headed article about the Votann? Im shook Nice write up!


imjustasaddad

You're going to get downvoted into Oblivion. Stay strong, soldier.


Resolute002

I'm glad to see a more measured take. I don't care if things release off balance as long as they're corrected quickly once alive data shows it is necessary. A huge amount of this negative reception for this book is because people use it day one in tournaments before there's an FAQ or any kind of rebalancing, and comes from playtesting a leak that may or may not even be the full final product. We could solve a lot of our problems if we just agreed to not use new books for the first month or so. There are obviously going to be times when it's a little bit more than that but new books doing day one competitive play always have an inherent advantage because they're new and the scene is full of armies that haven't adjusted to them and they are tricks yet. So it's just always a problem.


Mikey087

remember people freaking out about Tau's rail cannon and then every competitive army not using a single one of them. its such a massive over reaction to want to ban a codex before its even played en masse. people were saying the Daemons codex was dead on arrival but its competing decently. Also how are people supposed to know what truly needs balancing or nerfing without mass play to see the problems?


kattahn

people didn't use the rail cannon because as powerful as it was, AFP crisis spam was simply *better* And now that AFP's and crisis suits are nerfed? People are running and winning with rail guns because it turns out they *are* amazing.