Balance dataslate and DG

[Special Officer Doofy]

So the balance dataslate came out, Joe has the link and main thread posted in the News forum.

 

The good:

 

Anything with heretic astartes keyword worsens incoming AP by 1, a buff to "power armor". This includes our vehicles and terminators. Seems excessive but I'll take it.

 

Blightlord and Deathshroud terminators got objective secured. Awesome!

 

The bad:

 

Indirect fire from our plagueburst mortar got nerfed hard. Now things without LoS fire at -1BS and the unit getting fire at automatically get cover (Astra militarum get to ignore this new change for some reason...).

 

Body guard rules change, Deathshroud got worse in that aspect. Bodyguard no longer prevents a character from being targeted, it just works for look out sir with 3 or less models. This is a nerf to bodyguards and a buff to snipers, which we only have bodyguards and no snipers.

 

 

 

Some weird changes. My main space marine opponent is salamanders and they now prevent wound rerolls against them, which is a huge thing for DG, on top of getting the AP debuff themselves. So that part sucks for me haha. The LoS mortar debuff thematically makes sense but PBC's just got worse. Thankfully it just got a points drop. I never used Deathshroud as bodyguards that change doesn't effect me. And objective secured on our terminators that now get -1AP? Nice.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Putrid Choir

[Plague _Lord]

Well tbh we needed these changes - ob sec on deathshroud and blightlord is amazing, so is the -1 ap thing.

My 1st thoughts:

 

Armour of Contempt - amazing change for us. Terminator armour will finally be used (I was just rolling inv saves the whole time tbh) and this is a nice stealth buff to our DP, who with the slew of possible defensive buffs will be real hard to put down (2+ relic armour, transhuman from WLtrait and -1 to ap!? Great!). The funny thing is that this is not a buff to power armour alone - it affects all our vechicles as well. It means less chip damage from weapons such as heavy bolters/autocannons and while it still probably isn't worth taking a predator or landraider it acutally does buff rhinos somewhat - getting a 5+ save from a lascannon is cool. Another big winner here is the bloat drone with mower - a lot of close combat attacks have -1/-2 to ap and these guys will hold out longer after getting stuck in. Is this enough to push plague marines a bit? Maybe. My plague marines usually died from taking 5+ armour saves en masse from ap-2 weapons. Now the odds of my guys surviving a higher. Still not sure If I will take them but the unit is a bit more survivable. Helbrutes might be winners here aswell - their lack of an inv save was what made them untakeable. Now they get a 5+ from lascannons it might push them a bit.

 

Ob sec terminators - amazing buff tbh. Our enemy will have to commit not only elite units to shift a terminator squad from an objective but also support from obsec units. I think 5man blightlord units have more merit now. But the great buff, for me at least, is obsec on deathshroud. A lot of my enemies tend to put artillery, tanks or charachters on their backfield obejctives and now a deepstriking deathshroud unit can take it from such units. Great change!

 

Artillery changes - here we see why the PBC went down in the last balance sheet. It will be a pain to take out power armoured units with the mortars - not only do we hit on a 4+ but also they get essentially a 1+ save and our ap goes down to -1 only... the maths doesn't look great. I think we just have to use the mortar against visible targets. It now comes down to the question is the MBH or the PBC better at ant tank duties? For me the PBC still wins out.

 

Overall we got a slight buff... now is a full terminators army viable? Maybe, allthough we still need cheap backfield objective holders.

[Sherrypie]

After I finally finished my Scorpius, having sat on the shelf unpainted for years, it only makes sense that I only had time to play it twice before indirect fire gets nerfed :D

 

In seriousness, ObSec on terminators is great as is the army wide AP reduction.  I often come up against Tau in our Crusade campaign and having that many more troopers make it to their lines alive is probably going to change the dynamics a fair bit.

[Plague _Lord]

The armour of contempt has just secretly buffed another units of ours... chaos spawn :D

Spawn are also heretic astartes and have just become a lot tougher vs ap -1 shooting - 5 of these buggers with grandfatherly influence will be super hard to shift. T6 allready made them pretty resilient to small arms fire but now getting a 5+ save vs most infantry guns is huge. Small units might actually be even better since it will force the enemy to go into overkill mode to finish them off.

[Special Officer Doofy]

Do any of you feel this is too much for a pdf and kind of a knee jerk reaction? Faction wide AP reduction seems like a lot. I will admit every codex that came out after DG is doing far better than DG...

[Plague _Lord]

Do any of you feel this is too much for a pdf and kind of a knee jerk reaction? Faction wide AP reduction seems like a lot. I will admit every codex that came out after DG is doing far better than DG...

 

I don't know... is it bigger than the +1 wound for space marines datasheet? I think this is one of the only ways to nerf ap without either doing a huge overhaul of the whole game or without putting out a dataslate that changes weapon stats. It's much easier to remember "oh marines and sisters have -1 to incoming ap" than "oh wait what did the autocannon's profile change to again?". They did forget about inquisitors in power armour though so this is quite annoying...

 

What I feel it is bigger in the changes to imperial guard - new points cost, new detachment rules, upgrades for infantry squads are free, yet veterans have to pay for same stuff and so on. People will now model powerfists to sergeants because they are free and yet they may have to remove them in 6months because they might not be free in the new dex. I actually preferr the factionwide buff to this.

[Lord Raven 19]

I like the Ap reduction for everything, the indirect fire nerf seems harsh, but was probably needed to combat t'au. I wish the weapon upgrades on PMs went down to 5pts each though, I'm really not thinking they're playable at the moment, especially with termies getting objective secured.

[KingYertle]

I had to do a double check that it wasn't Infantry Models that get the -1 AP benefit.  I think this is great for our Daemon engines vs mass small arms fire.  -1 Damage and -1 AP across the whole army should definitely spice things up!  

 

I'm not too concerned with the PBC Mortar.  Indirect Fire into a unit into Cover now sucks, especially if that unit is a Space Marine, but with Entropy Cannons being so good we are already positioning our PBC's to have LOS on targets.  It definitely changes the target priority, but the PBC should still be one of our star units.

 

Mortarion also picked up that -1 AP Boon.

[Plaguecaster]

Having a -1 to all ap basically army wide apart from zombies and cultists is massive

Plus the objective secured on terminators made the price increase slightly bearable

Hilarious that spawn are affected

[Special Officer Doofy]

Oh jeez I didn't even think about Mortarion. That is extra nice!

[Brother Kraskor]

Blightlords in cover by an objective with an effective 0+ and Obsec...! Try and peel them off the objective! 

[Volgon]

Awesome buffs, and I think the blanket nerfs on the crack back (indirect and bodyguard) are well worth the what we got in return. It's fair to assume a power armor resurgence in the coming weeks so I think Inexorable has shifted up to counteract the -1ap (though it was already one of the best ones). I think Terminus Est could be back on the menu. It's still paying for the points nerfs last dataslate, but it's not affected by the indirect nerf (though PBCs are more durable now). Poxwalkers were already AP0 and rely on volume of attacks and the MW strat to get through (which also ignores Armor of Contempt). He's expensive, but Typhus and a 10 man brick of Terminators sitting on the central objective is going to take a herculean effort to shift. Armor of Contempt, -1 to hit via Miasma from Typhus, obsec, and don't forget that Typhus gets the Harbinger of Death WLT for free to shut off enemy obsec within 3"!

[Closet Skeleton]

Obsec Blight lords is balanced with Thousand Sons but just makes Plague Marines even sadder. Obsec Deathshroud make no sense, might as well have made all non-character Bubonic Asartes obsec. Why are Possesed stuck as the only ones who don't claim ground?

 

 

Do any of you feel this is too much for a pdf and kind of a knee jerk reaction? Faction wide AP reduction seems like a lot. I will admit every codex that came out after DG is doing far better than DG...

 

I don't know... is it bigger than the +1 wound for space marines datasheet?

 

 

Well they still think +1 wound is too much for a PDF for Renegades and the other 5 legions which most chaos players disagree with.

 

Was Shock Assault and Bolter Discipline too much for a PDF?

 

 

 

Indirect fire from our plagueburst mortar got nerfed hard. Now things without LoS fire at -1BS and the unit getting fire at automatically get cover (Astra militarum get to ignore this new change for some reason...).

 

Guard ignore it because they're the only guys stuck with BS4+ artillery. They could have made it 'indirect fire weapons cannot hit on better than 4+' if not for Tau Smart missiles being part of the problem.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Closet Skeleton

[Kobrakei]

I think a spearhead filled with 2 big blocks of blightlords, 2 X deathshroud and 2x2 haulers is feeling very solid. Drop in a Tallyman for CP and go from there. Pick Grind, Stranglehold and TTL for secondaries.

[Bulwyf]

I am now considering dropping PMs competely from my list, going with just blobs of poxies to soak up firepower and harass the other objectives while I put as many BL squads as I can on the table. I love this change but what is the point of PMs now? Seriously, what is their point? They need a point decrease so bad now.

[Special Officer Doofy]

 

 

 

Indirect fire from our plagueburst mortar got nerfed hard. Now things without LoS fire at -1BS and the unit getting fire at automatically get cover (Astra militarum get to ignore this new change for some reason...).

Guard ignore it because they're the only guys stuck with BS4+ artillery. They could have made it 'indirect fire weapons cannot hit on better than 4+' if not for Tau Smart missiles being part of the problem.

That covers the accuracy portion but that doesn't address why their opponents don't auto get cover. I'm sure their codex will crank it to 10 too.

[Plague _Lord]

I am now considering dropping PMs competely from my list, going with just blobs of poxies to soak up firepower and harass the other objectives while I put as many BL squads as I can on the table. I love this change but what is the point of PMs now? Seriously, what is their point? They need a point decrease so bad now.

Yeah after some thought they got better but there offensive output got worse against half of the armies out there - plasma got a lot worse at tackling vechicles, blight launchers got a lot worse against any marine units. 280 pts for a shooty unit just isn't good. The melee unit, while it got more staying power, it still needs a transport and that inflates the cost even further.

Overall I would take plague marines if they costed 230 for 10 with either full shooty or full melee loadout.

 

So it looks like my main army comp will not change - big blightlord brick supported by pbc and contemptors.

[Tokugawa]

Could rotten constitution ignore Ap-1,-2 and -3 now?

[Relentless]

Plague Marines still have a place. Their role is just action monkeys now, while termies hold objectives. The ap reduction really helps prevent them getting whittled down while they do it. 

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Sincerely hope all the people who griped about point increases on terminators are eating their humble pie now..

[Brother Kraskor]

Could rotten constitution ignore Ap-1,-2 and -3 now?

 

I have been trying to get to the bottom of this. I think RAW it's broken:

 

- AP-3 attack comes in, Rotten Constitution does not trigger, Armour of Contempt does trigger

- Attack is now AP-2, Rotten Constitution triggers and reduces to AP0

- Because another AP-ignoring rule has triggered, Armour of Contempt fails

- Back to AP-3 and the cycle continues

[Special Officer Doofy]

Sincerely hope all the people who griped about point increases on terminators are eating their humble pie now..

That's still not right. They got a points increase when DG were barely rocking a 35% win rate (almost dead last) and were one of the only competitive options. It was good for internal balance for the codex but externally the whole codex needed a points drop.

[Plague _Lord]

 

Sincerely hope all the people who griped about point increases on terminators are eating their humble pie now..

That's still not right. They got a points increase when DG were barely rocking a 35% win rate (almost dead last) and were one of the only competitive options. It was good for internal balance for the codex but externally the whole codex needed a points drop.

 

 

Was it good for internal balance though? I tested various lists during this period and the only one that worked was still taking terminators, just I had less pts for other stuff.

 

Overall they increased costs on the 2 units that benefit the most from this balance update - to me it's pretty obvious they had this balance update planned for some time now but for some reason (probably the eldar release) they held off releasing every change...

 

Going back to changes for our army:

I see a lot of people talking about 2 bricks of 10 blight lords and for example 2MBH in a squad for TTL. I'm trying to list build around this but I have a problem with choosing secondaries - sure you can get 15 pts from TTL but to be honest TTL nearly allways makes you have to play defensively and if you are playing defensively with your 2 big terminator bricks then how are you taking the midfield? The other problem is our crowded elite slot, which makes us have to take a vanguard detachment if we want a virion, terminators and other units. I feel that the volkite contemptor is still one of our best units in terms of dealing damage and taking one bites even more into a pretty depleted cp pool.

 

I've come up with a list that might be interesting:

 

Vanguard detachment, inexorable:

 

Daemon Prince - wings, supparating plate, warlord - hulking physique.

 

Plague Surgeon - ferric blight

Tallyman - toll keeper

Foul Blightspawn - arch-contaminator, viscous death, stench vats

 

2x10 blightlords - 2xflail, 2xreaper autocannon

1x3 deathshroud - Champ.- 2x gauntlet, reaper of glorious entropy

Contemptor -2x volkite, missile launcher

1x3 chaos spawn - grandfathers influence

1x2 MBH

 

Secondaries would be probably TTL, stranglehold and I have no idea what for the 3rd? Psychic interrogation possibly. Even though the plague doc is trash, in this list you really need your blightlords to survive and he does give them some extra chance + the healing could actually work thanks to small arms being less effective. With so few units it will be hard to spread out so you probably have to take the middle ground and try and survive with your terminators... The problem is that you start with only 2CP... Places where you can cut CP usage are probably arch-contaminator on the blightspawn and the reaper on the deathshroud. Another possible version would be to cut the DP and take a non-psychic lord - the LoC as a similiar beatstick role or the LoV for some more protection vs fliers and the small buff to ap vs non armour of contempt armies. The second change would be to chuck the spawn for 2x10 cultists and this gives us more options for secondaries - banners being the most notable, but even RND and Abhor the witch vs greyknights, 1ksons and possibly eldar (do corsairs with the psyker count as a psychic unit?). This would probably be the way to go if 1ksons and grey knights see a resurgence in the tournament scene but for me the DP has been the MVP in nearly every game I've played and it's a hard drop - miasma is also helpful to keep those terminator bricks alive.

[Kobrakei]

 

 

 

Sincerely hope all the people who griped about point increases on terminators are eating their humble pie now..

That's still not right. They got a points increase when DG were barely rocking a 35% win rate (almost dead last) and were one of the only competitive options. It was good for internal balance for the codex but externally the whole codex needed a points drop.

Was it good for internal balance though? I tested various lists during this period and the only one that worked was still taking terminators, just I had less pts for other stuff.

 

Overall they increased costs on the 2 units that benefit the most from this balance update - to me it's pretty obvious they had this balance update planned for some time now but for some reason (probably the eldar release) they held off releasing every change...

 

Going back to changes for our army:

I see a lot of people talking about 2 bricks of 10 blight lords and for example 2MBH in a squad for TTL. I'm trying to list build around this but I have a problem with choosing secondaries - sure you can get 15 pts from TTL but to be honest TTL nearly allways makes you have to play defensively and if you are playing defensively with your 2 big terminator bricks then how are you taking the midfield? The other problem is our crowded elite slot, which makes us have to take a vanguard detachment if we want a virion, terminators and other units. I feel that the volkite contemptor is still one of our best units in terms of dealing damage and taking one bites even more into a pretty depleted cp pool.

 

I've come up with a list that might be interesting:

 

Vanguard detachment, inexorable:

 

Daemon Prince - wings, supparating plate, warlord - hulking physique.

 

Plague Surgeon - ferric blight

Tallyman - toll keeper

Foul Blightspawn - arch-contaminator, viscous death, stench vats

 

2x10 blightlords - 2xflail, 2xreaper autocannon

1x3 deathshroud - Champ.- 2x gauntlet, reaper of glorious entropy

Contemptor -2x volkite, missile launcher

1x3 chaos spawn - grandfathers influence

1x2 MBH

 

Secondaries would be probably TTL, stranglehold and I have no idea what for the 3rd? Psychic interrogation possibly. Even though the plague doc is trash, in this list you really need your blightlords to survive and he does give them some extra chance + the healing could actually work thanks to small arms being less effective. With so few units it will be hard to spread out so you probably have to take the middle ground and try and survive with your terminators... The problem is that you start with only 2CP... Places where you can cut CP usage are probably arch-contaminator on the blightspawn and the reaper on the deathshroud. Another possible version would be to cut the DP and take a non-psychic lord - the LoC as a similiar beatstick role or the LoV for some more protection vs fliers and the small buff to ap vs non armour of contempt armies. The second change would be to chuck the spawn for 2x10 cultists and this gives us more options for secondaries - banners being the most notable, but even RND and Abhor the witch vs greyknights, 1ksons and possibly eldar (do corsairs with the psyker count as a psychic unit?). This would probably be the way to go if 1ksons and grey knights see a resurgence in the tournament scene but for me the DP has been the MVP in nearly every game I've played and it's a hard drop - miasma is also helpful to keep those terminator bricks alive.

I think this looks good - I'd probably put grind as a third secondary, you're almost always going to be able to punk a unit off with the blight haulers.

 

I've got for this as a base, left with enough points to do some chopping and changing where needed

 

 

++ Vanguard Detachment -3CP (Chaos - Death Guard) [98 PL, -1CP, 1,846pts] ++

 

+ Stratagems +

 

Gifts of Decay [-1CP]: Additional Relics

 

+ HQ +

 

Death Guard Daemon Prince [8 PL, 150pts]: 5. Rotten Constitution, Hellforged sword, Suppurating Plate, Warlord

 

+ Elites +

 

Blightlord Terminators [20 PL, 388pts]

. Blightlord Champion: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Flail of corruption

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Reaper autocannon

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

 

Blightlord Terminators [20 PL, 388pts]

. Blightlord Champion: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Flail of corruption

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Reaper autocannon

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

. Blightlord Terminator: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

 

Deathshroud Terminators [9 PL, 165pts]

. Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet

. 2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet

 

Deathshroud Terminators [9 PL, 165pts]

. Deathshroud Champion: Plaguespurt gauntlet

. 2x Deathshroud Terminator: 2x Manreaper, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet

 

Tallyman [4 PL, 70pts]: Tollkeeper

 

+ Fast Attack +

 

Myphitic Blight-haulers [14 PL, 260pts]: Myphitic Blight-hauler, Myphitic Blight-hauler

 

Myphitic Blight-haulers [14 PL, 260pts]: Myphitic Blight-hauler, Myphitic Blight-hauler

 

++ Total: [98 PL, -1CP, 1,846pts] ++

 

Created with BattleScribe

Edited April 15, 2022 by Kobrakei

[KingYertle]

 

Could rotten constitution ignore Ap-1,-2 and -3 now?

 

I have been trying to get to the bottom of this. I think RAW it's broken:

 

- AP-3 attack comes in, Rotten Constitution does not trigger, Armour of Contempt does trigger

- Attack is now AP-2, Rotten Constitution triggers and reduces to AP0

- Because another AP-ignoring rule has triggered, Armour of Contempt fails

- Back to AP-3 and the cycle continues

 

 

I believe that giving a character Rotten Constitution would trigger bullet point 3 of Armour of Contempt ie it does not apply to models under the effects of any ability that lowers or worsens AP of an attack.  Therefore if you give a character this WT it would loose Armour of Contempt.

 

It does make that Warlord Trait less effective.   Still Good on a Daemon Prince with a 3+ Save as AP-3+ puts him on his 5++, however if you give him the 2+ save relic then AP-3 matters.