9th Ed Speculation Thread

[Coolbeans]

Imo point values are important but completely malleable and often change every year with chapter approved as a cheap balancing act, so I say let us speculate. The core rules of 9th paint the big picture, and most importantly a new codex is what will determine the most, not points.

 

At the end of 8th GW has loyalist marines with better chapter traits, doctrines, secondary traits and with that only valued tactical marines as 1 more point than a chaos space marines. Our HQ's are the same point cost for their opposite, and their librarians got a free psychic hood for the same cost over our sorcerers. Points are important, but change all the time. Not too often do datasheets and faction rules change but maybe at edition changes.

[TrawlingCleaner]

They really missed a beat with the Faith and Fury book (and the Psychic Awakening books for all Chaos factions) in that they missed a big opportunity to improve the Chaos Warband traits and/or give the warband traits to vehicles. I still don't understand how they thought giving vehicles legion traits would break anything? At worst some vehicles can have a -1 to hit with Alpha legion. Not even close the levels of broken IH or IF got with their supplements.

 

The Chaos codex needs a drastic re-do to revitalise the player base. While I do think that the early PA books were not at all good, I think they picked up the pace a bit more later on when patching holes for codexes that desperately needed it  (Grey knights, Death Guard) as well as helping new and different playstyles (Tau, Guard, Ad Mech)

[Are Verlo]

Imo point values are important but completely malleable and often change every year with chapter approved as a cheap balancing act, so I say let us speculate. The core rules of 9th paint the big picture, and most importantly a new codex is what will determine the most, not points.

 

At the end of 8th GW has loyalist marines with better chapter traits, doctrines, secondary traits and with that only valued tactical marines as 1 more point than a chaos space marines. Our HQ's are the same point cost for their opposite, and their librarians got a free psychic hood for the same cost over our sorcerers. Points are important, but change all the time. Not too often do datasheets and faction rules change but maybe at edition changes.

I’ll agree that points change often and at the end of 8th ed a chaos marine isn’t that cheap compared to a loyalist equivalent. Chapter tactics are largely better that legion traits and doctrines are incredibly usefull.

 

Primaris and scouts are mostly used as troops and csm does not have a counterpart. Tactiicals are anemic and bring little to the table. For a long period of 8th ed cultists were the envy of loyalist players.

 

I digress, and what I was trying to communicate is that I perhaps feel point values are slightly more important in the big picture of 9th ed and what will work/won’t work. As long as the loyslist pay for their superior stats (Primaris) and traits (chapter tactics and doctrines), I don’t mind them being «better» than a chaos marine.

[Coolbeans]

I meant no disrespect. Points are important. Most of us I believe are just speculating to kill time until we do get that codex(es) and figure it all out.

 

8th has left a bad taste in a lot of chaos marine player's mouths. I can't imagine they don't make some more drastic measures with the codexes, such as new traits that are army wide and useful at least. I'm not expecting doctrines, but if we don't get doctrine like stuff and secondary traits, we need to be cheaper points wise.

[Prot]

 

Prot, you mentioned psychic powers being harder to get off.  How so?  Is it just the change to Command Reroll strat?  I mean, there's always the Noctilith Crown.  It has the VEHICLE keyword, so it can be used to prevent shots at a character and it gives your psykers rerolls if they fail to cast.  Plus with the terrain changes I would hope it's easier to hide, though with its size that might not be an option.

 

And yes, I'm aware that if it explodes it is likely to kill your sorcerer.  Risk vs reward.

 

The big change is that you can no longer do psychic powers in any order. You have to do all the powers from one psyker before you do another.

 

 

Yes, plus the reroll is surprisingly annoying. IE: you will always reroll double 1's but double 6's often failed for me, or simply felt like it. Also failing a test on (for example) a roll of a 5 and a 1 would often fail a command re roll.

 

You are getting closer I find to opponent's because we need table control. Order of operation on the tests used to be highly flexible which feels very forced now. (For example I used to always roll one power on my DP first: Gaze of Fate, then use the results of other, more important tests first before going back to finish the DP. ) 

 

Getting HQ's in the list is harder inherently now so we may just have to get used to a world where you have 1 psyker ? I don't know. In that case the terrain is really harder to justify.

 

I may take the Noctlight Crown with my Thousand Sons as I love the model, but it's hard to say without seeing new points levels. 

[Doom Herald]

If I do play early 9th, I would probably try Disco Lord with Venomcrawlers and maybe CSM with autocannon. With a smaller board, Venoms and Discos are extra dangerous especially since they shoot in melee, plus NL do still have the fall back and charge WL Trait and strategem. Falling back 12 to 14" before the charge will be a big deal on smaller boards.

[Schurge]

Why did we sell our souls again?

[Lucerne]

Why did we sell our souls again?

More to the point, where did we leave our plot armour?

[Relic]

Why did we sell our souls again?

Because the bad guys are more interesting, fun and flawed!

[Relic]

Played my first 9th game there (as we know it). Two max blobs of Iron Warrior fearless cultists in front of my characters, chain havocs and oblits in the mid board'ish as the main force worked well. The new terrain rules meant that turn one not much happened but after that I felt the game opens up more then it did as once you touch the terrain you can't hide in most of them effectively anymore as they aren't enclosed.

 

Ignore cover is looking good. Will be interesting to see if they allow ignore cover to apply in combat. As it reads for iron warriors they currently do which is cool.

[BrainFireBob]

Sounds like the Scorpius is still a winner. We'll see how the FW purge goes

[Are Verlo]

 

Why did we sell our souls again?

Because the bad guys are more interesting, fun and flawed!

Ever since I started playing 40K back in 1st ed/RT I’ve always wanted a chaos army. I still remember spenning hours as a kid/teenager reading both volumes of Realms of chaos.

 

Chaos is what makes GW’s universe unique and imo the traitor legions have so much character.

[Doom Herald]

Why did we sell our souls again?

I like kit-bashing but don't want to play nids.

[Lord_Starscream]

 

 

Why did we sell our souls again?

Because the bad guys are more interesting, fun and flawed!

Ever since I started playing 40K back in 1st ed/RT I’ve always wanted a chaos army. I still remember spenning hours as a kid/teenager reading both volumes of Realms of chaos.

 

Chaos is what makes GW’s universe unique and imo the traitor legions have so much character.

 

 

Character doesn't make up for some things, sadly. And they've been neglected for far too long.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Anyone else thinking we are going to see assassins in most games against imperial players? The ability to swap them out for whichever is best is going to be very nasty, especially in events. Certainly making me think twice about my GK and TS even more as the prospect of facing a culexus is increased.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Anyone else thinking we are going to see assassins in most games against imperial players? The ability to swap them out for whichever is best is going to be very nasty, especially in events. Certainly making me think twice about my GK and TS even more as the prospect of facing a culexus is increased.

 

At least we'll have a lot less characters to lose now.

[Excessus]

Time to go back to speculating about 9th ed guys.  

 

[Edit]: I decided that the two threads (speculation & winners/losers) were so very similar so it was better to just merge them into one 9th ed megathread! Theoretically, winners/losers is speculation at this point anyway. :P 

[Lord_Starscream]

I speculate that not much will improve, we'll get models for units we already have, and that as a whole the faction will decline.

 

Mid-board control seems viable, but will erode as it's just a bunch of overpriced 1 wound models. Monster-Mash will be the main mechanism the army tries to use, but other armies do it better.

 

I expect generic CSM to really just vanish from play. Death Guard aren't as bad off, but still face a lot of the same problems. TS are the same way.

 

Codex release will unlikely fix any of the issues with the army. And now with Hordes being even worse than 8th, expect cultists to decline in usefulness as well. lol

[Excessus]

Hordes will have an easier time to survive after having some killed, right? 

 

Maybe squads of 30 cultists can be viable again...especially in terrain...

[Lord_Starscream]

Hordes will have an easier time to survive after having some killed, right? 

 

Maybe squads of 30 cultists can be viable again...especially in terrain...

 

Moral might hurt still too. If someone lights them up with a Wyvern and kills x20 cultists, you'll lose at least 21, and probably 23.

 

It just seems like a lot of points for something that won't be around, even by 40k standards.

[Excessus]

They used to be wiped out by that completely in 8th though, now the opponent will have to target them a second time with something. 

 

We need to wait and see how the strategems change also, since many will just be wierd when you need to use them at the start of the round. The tide of traitors one could be nice, 

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

 

Anyone else thinking we are going to see assassins in most games against imperial players? The ability to swap them out for whichever is best is going to be very nasty, especially in events. Certainly making me think twice about my GK and TS even more as the prospect of facing a culexus is increased.

 

At least we'll have a lot less characters to lose now.

 

true, but that also means we have less ability to cushion the loss of any of them when we do.

[Captain Incompetence]

 

Hordes will have an easier time to survive after having some killed, right? 

 

Maybe squads of 30 cultists can be viable again...especially in terrain...

 

Moral might hurt still too. If someone lights them up with a Wyvern and kills x20 cultists, you'll lose at least 21, and probably 23.

 

It just seems like a lot of points for something that won't be around, even by 40k standards.

 

As Exessus said, in 8th they'd be straight up gone after 20 casualties unless you paid the CP to auto-pass morale. The change to morale actually is pretty drastic for the survivability of Cultist blobs, not only will they manage to stick around for longer, but your opponent has to commit to wiping them completely or risk us bringing them back with Tide of Traitors. Granted it's not cheap at 180 points and 2cp for the stratagem, but it's not the worst idea if you need some bodies that can soak up some damage or just bury an enemy unit in dice.

 

On the other hand, the blast weapons definitely hurt, but at least in my local meta, they're not that prevalent to begin with. And if they have to waste a Leman Russ or two firing into my cultists, they're not firing on the units that'll actually be doing the damage anyway, so again not the worst trade?

 

I think with what I've seen of 9th so far, I'm guessing we'll see Cultists once again being the go-to for CSM troop choice, at least until our codex gets updated, or GW drastically alters the basic CSM statline.

[Prot]

Well originally I thought the Cultist was going to be a winner because of their (comparitively speaking) high increase of a point going into 9th. Then Moral proved that (a bit, but you will still lose some on a roll of 1,2 on those bigger squads).  Then a red herring came out called Bile who had a chance of adding utility, but at his points, and CP cost of extra HQ's.. I would be very surprised if we see Bile at all in 9th competitively speaking.

 

At the end of it the thing I realized in my games was how vital board control is now. This is why we need to have a huge shift in our thinking. I am -crushing- people with my Custodes right now. My Chaos is getting spanked... Eldar feels.. horrible. Marines seem very good, and some other factions look similar... 

 

But I blame myself. I realized I really dislike the new Coherency rules (that's just personal, it's still early, but so far it's my least favourite of the new rules). The 'blame myself' part though is realizing why my Custodes are doing so well.... survivable and scary as heck in CC. (That's why a few posts earlier I stated I believe at this point Death Guard look on top of the Chaos heap).

 

We all have to come to grips with pure killing not being the end all/be all of the missions anymore. These secondaries... the primary, a LOT of it is based on board control and we have to figure out how to do that.  Keep in mind if we put our guns away, I think that's the wrong answer. 

 

I think so far I've found the best answer is -tough- squads, and very good mid range, mobile fire power. Again think Death Guard style tactics. Some psychic (as Psychic is turned down) and then there's a strong troop component there that can take a bit of a beating. 

 

Oblits are back in my lists. I know there's debate on the randomness. I just really don't know what to do about the army composition. I can get away with a Vanguard for my Custodes and get 12 CP. With Chaos a list is much tougher. If our troops killed, and held as well, and we didn't need so many HQ's I think a single detachment would be best, but not likely for a lot of Chaos configurations.

 

I think Rhino's have to come back in the mix. I'm using them again for Havocs, but as I pull out troops, I may gravitate towards something else... something elite in those rhino's. I don't like big elite squads (coherency) but even smaller squads of possessed? I don't know really.

[Excessus]

I have just finished building two squads of ten marines with plasmas. I'm gonna put them in rhinos with havoc launchers.