Codex Incoming!

[taikishi]

 

 

So they decided to kick the Bloody Rose into the dirt by down grading their unique strategem and their conviction.

Bloody Rose and Valorous Heart where near auto-picks before. They're still good, but they're a little less good to try and balance the Orders a little more.

 

I feel like the rework across the army looks pretty good as a whole. Like Argent Shroud advancing and counting as stationary for all shooting (sprinting Retributors anyone?), OoOML being tweaked so it doesn't work if you heal the unit back to full, making Ebon Chalice actually worth using, ect.

Argent Shroud could already do sprinting Retributors.

 

When a unit with this conviction Advances, it can fire ranged weapons as if it had moved without Advancing.

Combined with Retributors ignoring movement penalties for shooting (which I imagine is going away), it was a thing before. Argent Shroud just didn't do enough before to warrant being a pick.

 

And EC is only worth using if you play mono-Sisters. If you're like me and actually want to play an Imperium army (such as bringing guard), EC loses half of its Order Trait and that bothers me.

[sitnam]

Even though I build a custom order, before we got these custom rules I liked the theme of Ebon Chalice and their order trait/relic (Space crossbows are cool). I like this new trait even better thematically, kind of cementing the Ebon Chalice as the first amongst the Orders

 

Really wish they'd preview more custom orders in these previews.

[BitsHammer]

 

 

 

So they decided to kick the Bloody Rose into the dirt by down grading their unique strategem and their conviction.

Bloody Rose and Valorous Heart where near auto-picks before. They're still good, but they're a little less good to try and balance the Orders a little more.

 

I feel like the rework across the army looks pretty good as a whole. Like Argent Shroud advancing and counting as stationary for all shooting (sprinting Retributors anyone?), OoOML being tweaked so it doesn't work if you heal the unit back to full, making Ebon Chalice actually worth using, ect.

Argent Shroud could already do sprinting Retributors.

 

When a unit with this conviction Advances, it can fire ranged weapons as if it had moved without Advancing.

Combined with Retributors ignoring movement penalties for shooting (which I imagine is going away), it was a thing before. Argent Shroud just didn't do enough before to warrant being a pick.

 

And EC is only worth using if you play mono-Sisters. If you're like me and actually want to play an Imperium army (such as bringing guard), EC loses half of its Order Trait and that bothers me.

For some reason I was positive that only applied to assault weapons. Apparently the morning caffeine was needed.

 

And speaking of rather specific builds, OoML is probably the max sized unit choice.

 

I'm alright with different Orders being designed for specific roles. It feels thematic that they fill certain niches, even if that much is mono faction.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Fulkes

[taikishi]

The problem with ML is it still encourages both max size units for the hit bonus and MSU for getting more MD. That said, ML Paragon warsuits could be interesting if they prove to be survivable enough. Lose one and the other two get +1 to-hit.

 

Also, my complaint on EC is entirely "you lose half your chapter tactic to soup" and the only other CT equivalent to do that is Mars. In both cases, they should have been given different abilities because you shouldn't be losing detachment level abilities because they're tied to an army-wide rule.

Edited June 4, 2021 by taikishi

[SkimaskMohawk]

Feel like sacred rites are completely tied to how strong EC and BL are. If the passion gets changed on top of the BL trait and stratagem getting nerfed then I'm not sure if they'll stick around.

 

I could see potential for bolter bombs with SR and auto-wound+long-range rapid fire strat.

[Blurf]

Feel like sacred rites are completely tied to how strong EC and BL are. If the passion gets changed on top of the BL trait and stratagem getting nerfed then I'm not sure if they'll stick around.

 

I could see potential for bolter bombs with SR and auto-wound+long-range rapid fire strat.

Did you mean BR?

 

As for the other bit, that's 3 CP for bolter shots. Even a 19 girl OOML battle sister squad with 2 storm bolters, hitting on 2s rerolling, exploding 6s only kills 4 intercessors. You could add Blessed bolts and Divine Guidance to get up to like 6 or 7 intercessors but that's 4 CP, requires you to suicide at least one model, and takes up your sacred rite.

 

Defenders of the Faith is really only useful for defense. They threw the rapid fire thing on there so they could justify it costing 2CP.

[Blurf]

The bloody rose will live and die by how much Imagifiers, Repentia and Zephyrim change but will likely be fine given we know what the new celestians with maces will be able to put out.

 

And you never know one of the prayers for the Priest keyword may be a sisters copy of Exhortation of Rage.

The problem with the new Celestians is that they're the only Bloody Rose unit that will actually feel the nerf to quick to anger. Neither Zephyrim or Repentia survive very long if stuck in with...just about anything.

 

Celestian Sacresants on the other hand, absolutely might be able to stick around for a turn or two...which means their melee ability drops from 'decent' to 'Tau'. So even though they can actually survive long enough to fight twice...they won't be able to kill anything in the second combat.

[Banjulhu]

I think the new mace versions of the celestians will be fine post the 1st round of attacks as even without the bloody rose's +1A and +1AP in the first round most things in the game dont like taking the melee equivalent of a heavy bolter to the face. Plus I doubt there will be much left to take said mace to the face a 2nd time.

We will have to see what buffs the strats, holy icons and prayers let us layer up

[BitsHammer]

The problem with ML is it still encourages both max size units for the hit bonus and MSU for getting more MD. That said, ML Paragon warsuits could be interesting if they prove to be survivable enough. Lose one and the other two get +1 to-hit.

 

Also, my complaint on EC is entirely "you lose half your chapter tactic to soup" and the only other CT equivalent to do that is Mars. In both cases, they should have been given different abilities because you shouldn't be losing detachment level abilities because they're tied to an army-wide rule.

Maxed sized units and more characters than your opponent knows what to do with stacks well since you get double dice for character deaths.

 

On a different note I'm going to call it now: Repentia are likely not going to be Core.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Fulkes

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

Feel like sacred rites are completely tied to how strong EC and BL are. If the passion gets changed on top of the BL trait and stratagem getting nerfed then I'm not sure if they'll stick around.

 

I could see potential for bolter bombs with SR and auto-wound+long-range rapid fire strat.

Did you mean BR?

 

As for the other bit, that's 3 CP for bolter shots. Even a 19 girl OOML battle sister squad with 2 storm bolters, hitting on 2s rerolling, exploding 6s only kills 4 intercessors. You could add Blessed bolts and Divine Guidance to get up to like 6 or 7 intercessors but that's 4 CP, requires you to suicide at least one model, and takes up your sacred rite.

 

Defenders of the Faith is really only useful for defense. They threw the rapid fire thing on there so they could justify it costing 2CP.

 

 

Yes, I meant BR.

 

And yea, its a lot for potentially nothing. There's still a lot of unknown stuff out there. But the actual combo would be Repugnance+2 strats+Vhal on sacred rose. If you fish for 6s from the full reroll you average 11 failed saves, 22 if youre in half.

 

Defenders of the Faith is flat out useful. Transhuman is 1 cp per phase, this is 2 cp for a full game turn. Realistically that can be an equivalent of 4cp. Then you get some bonus fire power.

 

If admech has shown us anything, its that blobs of troops can flex into dps.

Edited June 4, 2021 by SkimaskMohawk

[Blurf]

 

The problem with ML is it still encourages both max size units for the hit bonus and MSU for getting more MD. That said, ML Paragon warsuits could be interesting if they prove to be survivable enough. Lose one and the other two get +1 to-hit.

 

Also, my complaint on EC is entirely "you lose half your chapter tactic to soup" and the only other CT equivalent to do that is Mars. In both cases, they should have been given different abilities because you shouldn't be losing detachment level abilities because they're tied to an army-wide rule.

Maxed sized units and more characters than your opponent knows what to do with stacks well since you get double dice for character deaths.

 

On a different note I'm going to call it now: Repentia are likely not going to be Core.

 

Honestly, I don't think it will matter. Imagifier's taking repentia from 6-7 was dubious value already. They were perfectly capable of killing a rhino without it. Losing the preacher buff would hurt more but you just sub him out for a repentia superior. You miss out on a decent whack of damage going from +1 attack to reroll 1s to wound but the reroll charges takes some of the sting out of it.

 

 

 

Feel like sacred rites are completely tied to how strong EC and BL are. If the passion gets changed on top of the BL trait and stratagem getting nerfed then I'm not sure if they'll stick around.

 

I could see potential for bolter bombs with SR and auto-wound+long-range rapid fire strat.

Did you mean BR?

 

As for the other bit, that's 3 CP for bolter shots. Even a 19 girl OOML battle sister squad with 2 storm bolters, hitting on 2s rerolling, exploding 6s only kills 4 intercessors. You could add Blessed bolts and Divine Guidance to get up to like 6 or 7 intercessors but that's 4 CP, requires you to suicide at least one model, and takes up your sacred rite.

 

Defenders of the Faith is really only useful for defense. They threw the rapid fire thing on there so they could justify it costing 2CP.

 

 

Yes, I meant BR.

 

And yea, its a lot for potentially nothing. There's still a lot of unknown stuff out there. But the actual combo would be Repugnance+2 strats+Vhal on sacred rose. If you fish for 6s from the full reroll you average 11 failed saves, 22 if youre in half.

 

Defenders of the Faith is flat out useful. Transhuman is 1 cp per phase, this is 2 cp for a full game turn. Realistically that can be an equivalent of 4cp. Then you get some bonus fire power.

 

If admech has shown us anything, its that blobs of troops can flex into dps.

 

Defenders of the Faith is great to have, but considering it only works on battle sisters, it absolutely would have been a 1 CP strat without the rapid fire bonus. A GOOD 1 cp strat, but a 1 CP strat all the same.

 

It's a neat combo idea, but it's very heavy investment. I don't know how practical it would be. If nothing else though, it does illustrate the types of compounding buffs we can get with the hymns(which I totally forgot existed until you brought it up.)

 

If only they weren't (probably) random rolls. I hate the whole 'role a 3+ to see if you get to not lose!' mechanic chaplain type models have now. I'd rather the ability be weaker but guaranteed to go off.

[Banjulhu]

 

If only they weren't (probably) random rolls. I hate the whole 'role a 3+ to see if you get to not lose!' mechanic chaplain type models have now. I'd rather the ability be weaker but guaranteed to go off.

What if Miracle Dice can be used to set off prayers? At that point it would be a hell of a lot more reliable.

[Blurf]

 

 

If only they weren't (probably) random rolls. I hate the whole 'role a 3+ to see if you get to not lose!' mechanic chaplain type models have now. I'd rather the ability be weaker but guaranteed to go off.

What if Miracle Dice can be used to set off prayers? At that point it would be a hell of a lot more reliable.

 

That WOULD be very nice...and would make a lot of sense thematically.

 

Spoilers from the data card preorder: Ebon Chalice auto 6 shots for flamers got moved to a general strat AND affects adeptus ministorum units instead of just <Order> (i.e. penitent engines and mortifiers).

[SkimaskMohawk]

Goonhammer review is up. Retributors lost their strat and special rule. Rip.

 

Holy rage doesn't let you run and charge.

 

Shield of faith only stacks to a 5, but sent rolls of 6 stop the power.

 

Storm bolters are just all d2 now. Flamers of all types are +1str.

 

Vahls trait is reroll all hits and wounds....

 

Stern and the elf are characters in the book and are buffed.

 

Celestine doesn't buff anymore and the Gemini have to die first, but is -1 damage once she's alone and her tears heal her to full and res a gemini, but it's an action.

 

Triumph also counts as 9 wounds for look out sir purposes. But, only generates a miracle dice per battle round, no bonus act of faith, only one act of faith per battle round can be modified (but to an auto 6) and is restricted by core.

 

Full blob of battle sisters can get 4 special weapons or 2 and 2 heavy.

 

Imagifier is more of an offense buff. It's - ap is now -1 to wound from str3 or less. But Faithful is reroll to advance and charge and Warrior is the same but only to core

 

Sacresants have a 4++, can heroic intervene and always set to defend. Are 70 points for 5.

 

 

Repentia are still decent, basically no change to their sheet but you can't get run and charge as easy, +1str or 4++. The fight twice strat changed to fight if killed, so dealing with these in melee will suck.

 

Paragons apparently are typod to be 240 each for the first 3 and missing the minimum damage clause. Can take heavy flamers and are both core and celestians for keywords so you can offset the maces with the stratagem.

 

Zepherym lose reroll to wound, but gain an attack and their strat is +1 to wound. Also fast attack.

 

Dominions get to scout their transport. So 5 plus 5 of something else you want up the board.

 

Tanks were skimmed and panned as duds from their point cost, lack of core and marginal defensive abilities.

Edited June 5, 2021 by SkimaskMohawk

[Blurf]

Abridged review: Book sucks.

 

Less abridged review: Book sucks in a way that is specifically designed to make you spend money. (In order to still not be as good.)

[SkimaskMohawk]

Abridged review: Book sucks.

 

Less abridged review: Book sucks in a way that is specifically designed to make you spend money. (In order to still not be as good.)

You must have not read their review like you said you did. They put it as on par with death guard and dark Angels. So pretty competitive still.

 

Did you actually expect the book to not take nerfs?

[TheFinisher4Ever]

Am I bummed that a bunch of the units I've worked on recently got nerfed decently hard? Sure. But I'm MUCH more unhappy that the BSS load out I've been using since 6th edition is no longer possible. Now that blows.

[Blurf]

 

Abridged review: Book sucks.

 

Less abridged review: Book sucks in a way that is specifically designed to make you spend money. (In order to still not be as good.)

You must have not read their review like you said you did. They put it as on par with death guard and dark Angels. So pretty competitive still.

 

Did you actually expect the book to not take nerfs?

 

Honestly? No. It didn't need them. The previous book was almost perfect. All they had to do was fix dominions, immolators, and penitent engines and bump up a couple of the weaker convictions and it would have been easily the best codex GW has ever come out with, even if it still loses to Drukhari and Admech most of the time.

 

More than anything I dislike HOW the changes have been implemented. Some of them are utterly baffling. The repentia superior was mediocre but changing it's ability to go off in the command phase makes it totally unusable. The imagifier change makes it bad for defense unless FRFSRF Conscripts become the meta again. Immolators went up in price for no reason. Exorcists saw totally unnecessary statline nerfs and a point change that would have made sense on it's BETTER profile but leave it worse off on its weaker one. Deadly descent can't be used on inferno pistols for no reason. Priests lose their aura ability for hymns which go off in the command phase making it so you can't use it on anything in a transport or coming out of deepstrike. Zephyrim trade out their reroll wounds for +1 attack for who knows why. Paragon suits were apparently designed by someone who had never heard about Melta guns before. The Castigator was designed by someone who apparently had no idea that 40k had guns in it. The triumph lost the abilities that made it uniquely useful in exchange for abilities that really emphasize how it's not very good in melee.

 

It's not necessarily that the book is weaker, it's that a lot of the changes don't make any sense. (and that the book is weaker.)

Edited June 5, 2021 by Blurf

[SkimaskMohawk]

You thought the 8th book was perfectly balanced and didn't need nerfs and in fact needed buffs? You're actually crazy.

 

Sororitas domination only stopped when the 74% win rate dark eldar came out, where they dropped to second. Ad mech released a week or so ago and has no real tournament data against the 8th book. The point being, that only getting bumped to second by the most overpowered book since Iron hands* is telling.

 

I agree that a lot of changes were annoying and a little too much, but you're also overreacting on a lot.

 

It's obvious that auto-charging from rhinos and reserves was extremely strong and that stacking buffs on top of that is kind of like the cherry on top. So you gotta choose between damage immunity and auto-charges, or risky deployment and stacking buffs; notice you didn't call vahls buff useless despite it being used in the same phase with the same limitations.

 

Zepherym had insane spike damage before; they copped a nerf, but with their strat of +1 to wound actually out DPS with the same set up (bloody rose, passion, tear them down). That's without vahl buff, and they're also out of the elite slot.

 

A lot of the changes don't make sense. But a lot do, and the book needed to be weaker.

[adreal]

I'm looking forward to the new book, not really sure what I'll run, but I have an idea, the only annoyance I have, is the change to battle sister squad special weapons.

 

The secondary of getting points for acts of Faith will annoy people

[Closet Skeleton]

Retributors being more mobile than superhuman devastators and the fast attack dominions in the same book, Zephyrim having a reroll buff purely to offset the game's basic stat system being against them, suicidal Repentia having refractor fields when standing next to the right people despite being kicked out of the standard hierarchy, Celestine's body guards having to make seperate charge rolls to keep up, these things people were used to all made perfect sense but what seems to be some quite careful internal balance is awful because it comes with new eccentricities people aren't used to. Right.

 

From internet forums you'd get the idea that the rules team should literally never bother with internal balance because the list optimisation freaks only care about balance between factions and actively want some units/colour schemes to suck so they can feel clever about not owning them.

 

 

.
And EC is only worth using if you play mono-Sisters. If you're like me and actually want to play an Imperium army (such as bringing guard), EC loses half of its Order Trait and that bothers me.

 

I'm not so sure about this. Miracle die gain is now mono-faction limited but Sacred Rites don't say anything like that so it might be the other faction traits that care more about this.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Closet Skeleton

[Banjulhu]

Nothing seems bad except the ongoing disdain the design team have for rhino based vehicles with more than a storm bolter as a weapon. Retributors not being able to move and shoot is a kick but they are a unit of 12 point models that can still hoist some nice weapons like S6 heavy flamers.

My gripe so far is not that its weak, but that a lot of it's strength seems to be in the new shiny toys rather than the toys that have been out for 18 months.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Ya there's the obvious new unit angle for sure, which also mirrors the marine release with having dud vehicles.

 

But from returning units the zepherym, dominions, penitent engines and battle sisters seem to be winners. I actually missed that zephs got cheaper, which means they might...be even better than their old version at the cost of 1 more cp.

[Blurf]

You thought the 8th book was perfectly balanced and didn't need nerfs and in fact needed buffs? You're actually crazy.

 

Sororitas domination only stopped when the 74% win rate dark eldar came out, where they dropped to second. Ad mech released a week or so ago and has no real tournament data against the 8th book. The point being, that only getting bumped to second by the most overpowered book since Iron hands* is telling.

 

I agree that a lot of changes were annoying and a little too much, but you're also overreacting on a lot.

 

It's obvious that auto-charging from rhinos and reserves was extremely strong and that stacking buffs on top of that is kind of like the cherry on top. So you gotta choose between damage immunity and auto-charges, or risky deployment and stacking buffs; notice you didn't call vahls buff useless despite it being used in the same phase with the same limitations.

 

Zepherym had insane spike damage before; they copped a nerf, but with their strat of +1 to wound actually out DPS with the same set up (bloody rose, passion, tear them down). That's without vahl buff, and they're also out of the elite slot.

 

A lot of the changes don't make sense. But a lot do, and the book needed to be weaker.

They were never 'dominant' they were just really good. Consistent contenders, almost always in the top 8 of events but never particularly oppressive. In the conversation for one of the top books in the game but never the favorite. Could retributors have used a points bump? Sure, but SoB were far from in need of this kind of a rewrite.

 

Auto-charging out of reserve is very strong, stacking buffs on top of that was very strong, but it was no crazier than what any of the other good books were doing and markedly LESS crazy than what Drukhari came out able to do. If anything the other books should have been brought UP to us rather than trying to bring us down.

 

The buffs that are 'useless'  (and that's perhaps too strong of term. Except for the repentia superior) are that way because the units don't really function in the way the buffs need them to. It's not about risky deployment, it's about repentia, and to a lesser extent Zephyrim and an even lesser extent Sacresants not surviving long enough to cross the field and get stuck in if you try to buff them on foot. It's the same coming out of transports and deepstrike being in an aggressive posture almost guarantees they'll die to retaliatory actions. The buffs redesigned was intended to limit the power of units appearing out of nowhere and going to town. I can understand that, I even agree to an extent. But they were implemented without really thinking about how the units they were intended to benefit work in their own right.

 

I concede that I didn't do the math on the Zephyrim changes before I went in on them and that they're one of the units that COULD potentially take battle hymns and still charge. So maybe they end up the same or better. I will have no issue being wrong about them. I would prefer to be wrong about all of this. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I personally believe the previous codex was the gold standard all books should have strived for.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Blurf

[Blurf]

Retributors being more mobile than superhuman devastators and the fast attack dominions in the same book, Zephyrim having a reroll buff purely to offset the game's basic stat system being against them, suicidal Repentia having refractor fields when standing next to the right people despite being kicked out of the standard hierarchy, Celestine's body guards having to make seperate charge rolls to keep up, these things people were used to all made perfect sense but what seems to be some quite careful internal balance is awful because it comes with new eccentricities people aren't used to. Right.

 

From internet forums you'd get the idea that the rules team should literally never bother with internal balance because the list optimisation freaks only care about balance between factions and actively want some units/colour schemes to suck so they can feel clever about not owning them.

 

 

.

And EC is only worth using if you play mono-Sisters. If you're like me and actually want to play an Imperium army (such as bringing guard), EC loses half of its Order Trait and that bothers me.

 

I'm not so sure about this. Miracle die gain is now mono-faction limited but Sacred Rites don't say anything like that so it might be the other faction traits that care more about this.

For the record, I never bothered with putting a 4++ on repentia and never thought it was particularly good,complained about how stupid the Geminae thing was to GW's official email with several pages of analysis, and never understood why they couldn't find something useful for dominions to do.

 

I also wanted more variety of builds, I just wanted that by improving subpar units and convictions, not making the good ones worse. The Argent Shroud change, for example, is excellent.