The Lion!

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep, my comment is in the context of vs. other monstrous Critters and how that relates to the Guilliman comparison.

Angron kills him regardless of charge, Guilliman draws against him (so there is no reason why he cannot get Leadership Buffs too), Big Nids kill him if he doesn't charge etc.

His deep strike is great but his survivability until we know more is not flash.

Hopefully he can do more than just Duel and Bully non Monsters.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Interrogator Stobz

[Tacitus]

Remember they're very much overcharging for Deepstrike/(somewhat)Infiltrate/Transporting right now. 

 

There's (probably) going to be 5-7 Special Rule/Wargear things he'll get to do.  We've seen (probably) one in the Shield everyone is making fun of and one in the Deep Striking.   Another will be the Master of the First Aura. 

[Skywrath]

Article up..

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/04/10/put-the-forces-of-chaos-to-the-sword-with-free-rules-for-lion-eljonson/

 

Datasheet:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/b4fH6GbUcsq3HetQ.pdf

 

I'm disappointed. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Skywrath

[bigtrouble]

4 hours ago, Skywrath said:

 

I'm disappointed. 

 

Care to elaborate?

 

I’m no power gamer, so it comes at a bit of a surprise that folks aren’t keen on this guy.

 

He would only be legal for 9th for a couple months, maybe, so I’m not going to wait to get the model and the last book of Arks, just for the fun of it.

[jaxom]

2 hours ago, bigtrouble said:

Care to elaborate?

 

I’m no power gamer, so it comes at a bit of a surprise that folks aren’t keen on this guy.

I can't speak for Skywrath, but there's three main issues he has:

• No wound gating, so if a high damage weapon gets to the actual damage part, it can carve him up quite good.
• No protection versus mortal wounds.
• Toughness 6 and a 4+ Invulnerable Save don't offer much protection against other beatstick units/epic monsters/primarchs.

He is below the magic Wound value and benefits from "Look Out, Sir!" so that helps against shooting, but if his preferred targets survive his attacks, then he's in a bad place.

[Cpt_Reaper]

He has Inner Circle. At least he is only wounded on a 4+...right?

 

Also as someone who has never used a Primarch, he can run in a Successor Chapter right? Or is he hard locked to the Dark Angels themselves? I'm not sure if his mentions of Dark Angels can be swapped for Successor Name.

[bigtrouble]

39 minutes ago, jaxom said:

I can't speak for Skywrath, but there's three main issues he has:

• No wound gating, so if a high damage weapon gets to the actual damage part, it can carve him up quite good.
• No protection versus mortal wounds.
• Toughness 6 and a 4+ Invulnerable Save don't offer much protection against other beatstick units/epic monsters/primarchs.

He is below the magic Wound value and benefits from "Look Out, Sir!" so that helps against shooting, but if his preferred targets survive his attacks, then he's in a bad place.

Ah, very informative! I’m awaiting 10e breathlessly. I’ll be getting him in the box anyway since I wanted some more BGV. I also love the GW paint job and want to try that sick blend they did on his armor. Here’s hoping he’s playable.

[WrathOfTheLion]

53 minutes ago, Cpt_Reaper said:

He has Inner Circle. At least he is only wounded on a 4+...right?

 

Also as someone who has never used a Primarch, he can run in a Successor Chapter right? Or is he hard locked to the Dark Angels themselves? I'm not sure if his mentions of Dark Angels can be swapped for Successor Name.

I think it says you cannot for named characters in the Supplement, but I would think that's an oversight in this case.

 

I expect they didn't spend too much effort on making sure everything works cleanly given the rules' obviously temporal nature at this point.

 

If you're going to take the standard Chapter tactic anyways, I would just just run them as <Dark Angels> if you want to use him, or if it's a more casual game, house rule it. I'm not sure waiting on an FAQ for two months is worth bothering with.

Edited April 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion
added last paragraph

[Skywrath]

2 hours ago, jaxom said:

I can't speak for Skywrath, but there's three main issues he has:

• No wound gating, so if a high damage weapon gets to the actual damage part, it can carve him up quite good.
• No protection versus mortal wounds.
• Toughness 6 and a 4+ Invulnerable Save don't offer much protection against other beatstick units/epic monsters/primarchs.

He is below the magic Wound value and benefits from "Look Out, Sir!" so that helps against shooting, but if his preferred targets survive his attacks, then he's in a bad place.

 

No, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I thought I was overreacting at first when I went to sleep, but after looking at the datasheet again with a fresher perspective, it's as bad as I first saw it. Admittedly hiding him behind a 10m Deathwing blob is a case, with a fight first, which goes with an argument that a good defense is a good offense, but there is just so much oversight here it hurts. Like where on earth is at least the DEATHWING keyword? You would think that being the master of the Deathwing he'd get the keyword? Then there is the fact he gets no transhuman - I think I mostly vented my frustrations earlier in the other thread, but this one hurts.. a lot. On top of all this, he has no chapter master re-rolls, so you'd always take Azrael with him? Or some sort of a generic chapter master, make him even more expensive?

 

You know the situation is bad for him competitively, when you could take a Deathwing Champion with the Chapter Champion upgrade with a Master-Crafted Weapon and the WL trait of Imperium's sword for 1CP more, and you'd get a similar amount of value/attacks, for 1/3rd of the price. 

 

Regardless, I'll still play him, but they done him dirty. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

Who gives a flying damn about competitive with him though? 10E is out in like two months... You'll have him for all of six weeks at most (not including building and painting him on top of that) before the preorders of the 10E launch box.

 

Very likely they ported his 10E datasheet back, where it looks like characters won't be having so many auras and re-rolls and all if it goes as presented.

Edited April 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Skywrath]

3 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

Who gives a flying damn about competitive with him though? 10E is out in like two months...

 

Very likely they ported his 10E datasheet back, where it looks like characters won't be having so many auras and re-rolls and all if it goes as presented.

 

I do, that's why I mentioned it. You play your game however you want, I play the game however I want, and that (for your reference) is competitive. Respect that - we still got 2-3 months worth of 9th left. 

 

Credit where credit is due, this does indeed look like a 10th ed datasheet, which at the current time reinforces my above argument. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

13 minutes ago, Skywrath said:

 

I do, that's why I mentioned it. You play your game however you want, I play the game however I want, and that (for your reference) is competitive. Respect that - we still got 2-3 months worth of 9th left. 

 

Credit where credit is due, this does indeed look like a 10th ed datasheet, which at the current time reinforces my above argument. 

Cool, but don't take it personal if most others are unsympathetic to a hardline stance for two months of tournaments. I can respect that you have it, but that doesn't mean I need to participate in what I view as silly.

 

As for your other complaints, the Deathwing and Inner-Circle keywords are functionally interchangeable as far as I remember, so I don't know why that matters besides pedantism.

 

Maybe it's a bit blunt, but I just find it really difficult to care about such short term time preferences on things like that. I don't make any decisions at this point based on the current rules of the game, that's completely shortsighted in my opinion.

Edited April 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Skywrath]

Just now, WrathOfTheLion said:

Cool, but don't take it personal if most others are unsympathetic to a hardline stance for two months of tournaments.

 

As for your other complaints, the Deathwing and Inner-Circle keywords are functionally interchangeable as far as I remember, so I don't know why that matters besides pedantism.

 

If people want to be unsympathetic to my argument, that's their choice. However, what grinds my gears is when people decide to attack my perspective - if you are going to attack my perspective, at least play the same game mode as I am. 

 

Functionally interchangeable. Hahah. The fact he got the INNER CIRCLE keyword implies he's immune to morale (which would never come up, and because he's missing the CHAPTER MASTER keyword means he can't fall back without subjecting himself to a leadership test. Let's look at the DEATHWING keyword - I covered the missing transhuman, but what about the ability to re-roll wounds of 8 and below in assault doctrine? Do those keywords look interchangeable to you?

 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

18 minutes ago, Skywrath said:

 

If people want to be unsympathetic to my argument, that's their choice. However, what grinds my gears is when people decide to attack my perspective - if you are going to attack my perspective, at least play the same game mode as I am. 

 

Functionally interchangeable. Hahah. The fact he got the INNER CIRCLE keyword implies he's immune to morale (which would never come up, and because he's missing the CHAPTER MASTER keyword means he can't fall back without subjecting himself to a leadership test. Let's look at the DEATHWING keyword - I covered the missing transhuman, but what about the ability to re-roll wounds of 8 and below in assault doctrine? Do those keywords look interchangeable to you?

 

 

The keyword still is useless then, as that ability is scoped to Deathwing Infantry or Dreadnought models. So there is no way with him being a monster that any rule would change if they replaced Inner Circle with the Deathwing keyword.

 

The fallback thing is true, but it would also be true if he had the Deathwing keyword. The Inner Circle ability is granted to all units with the Inner Circle or Deathwing keywords, so there's a bit of aliasing there. Note with LD 11 you'd have to roll two sixes for that to happen, so it is quite unlikely.

Edited April 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Skywrath]

19 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

The keyword still is useless then, as that ability is scoped to Deathwing Infantry or Dreadnought models. So there is no way with him being a monster that any rule would change if they replaced Inner Circle with the Deathwing keyword.

 

Shifting the goalposts? I just wanted to show you that those keywords are certainly not interchangeable. However, yes, I do concede on the point that him having the DEATHWING keyword, as is, without a minor rules addendum would functionally be useless. However, that still doesn't detract from the fact that as a master of the DEATHWING, thematically he should, with that addendum. But that devolves into a crunch vs fluff argument, and that can get rather messy..

 

Let's assume he got the relevant keywords. Even if he got transhuman and that ability, it wouldn't break the game that much, because with a 4++ invuln and 9W with a 2++ save, he's functionally a SC on bike, just without the movement speed, for durability purposes. And unlike the Custodes he doesn't have any access to the strats to switch off invulns or auto wound on 6's (Rendax). As for re-rolling W of 8 and above only in the third phase of the game, that would only come up useful against anything with T7 and above, as he would be wounding everything on 2's, unless transhuman. Which would be mainly vehicles/monsters/primarchs/demons or anything in that category. Even him having that ability wouldn't break the game, and keep to his reputation as a monster hunter, wouldn't you agree? 

 

With 2 months left to go its' largely moot with the new set of rules, but it's not everyday a loyalist primarchs returns. You'd think with all that fanfare surrounding him, they'd do him justice with the rules, and this is where the disappointment personally lies, because I think they certainly missed the mark from all perspectives. As mentioned earlier, I'll still play him, but this is where the heart of the issue lies. 

 

EDIT: Just thinking about it, even him subjecting him to the INNER CIRCLE keyword is also another dead keyword, and actually more of a crutch. If he falls back and rolls a 11-12 on 2D6 1/11th or 1/12th of the time would keep him trapped in combat. And he doesn't care about morale tbh. 

Edited April 11, 2023 by Skywrath

[WrathOfTheLion]

1 minute ago, Skywrath said:

 

Shifting the goalposts? I just wanted to show you that those keywords are certainly not interchangeable. However, yes, I do concede on the point that him having the DEATHWING keyword, as is, without a minor rules addendum would functionally be useless. However, that still doesn't detract from the fact that as a master of the DEATHWING, thematically he should, with that addendum. But that devolves into a crunch vs fluff argument, and that can get rather messy..

 

Let's assume he got the relevant keywords. Even if he got transhuman and that ability, it wouldn't break the game that much, because with a 4++ invuln and 9W with a 2++ save, he's functionally a SC on bike, just without the movement speed, for durability purposes. And unlike the Custodes he doesn't have any access to the strats to switch off invulns or auto wound on 6's (Rendax). As for re-rolling W of 8 and above only in the third phase of the game, that would only come up useful against anything with T7 and above, as he would be wounding everything on 2's, unless transhuman. Which would be mainly vehicles/monsters/primarchs/demons or anything in that category. Even him having that ability wouldn't break the game, and keep to his reputation as a monster hunter, wouldn't you agree? 

 

With 2 months left to go its' largely moot with the new set of rules, but it's not everyday a loyalist primarchs returns. You'd think with all that fanfare surrounding him, they'd do him justice with the rules, and this is where the disappointment personally lies, because I think they certainly missed the mark from all perspectives. As mentioned earlier, I'll still play him, but this is where the heart of the issue lies. 

Maybe on shifting the goalposts? The only time the keyword would actually matter is if the unit was an Infantry unit and had Inner Circle, but not Deathwing. I don't remember if there's any cases of this occurring, last I remember most things with INNER CIRCLE were Ravenwing units.

 

But yes, it wouldn't break the game, it's just not how it is. I would agree it would be thematic, but my main point is that I don't live in the now at this point in time, and I frankly just don't care about what they do in 9E. Once they did this past balance dataslate and went to late edition do whatever they want, I figured it wasn't worth worrying about anything

[WrathOfTheLion]

To add, if there are no units that are INNER CIRCLE INFANTRY (but not also DEATHWING INFANTRY, as they may have both DEATHWING and INNER CIRCLE ...), then they're functionally interchangeable after a bunch of convoluted logical branch statements, as there's no case where it would actually matter, which really points to it being poor design in the supplement that both exist in the first place. There only should have been the DEATHWING keyword.

 

I guess now that I think about it, the only functional usage would be to stop like a Ravenwing Master from getting both Deathwing and Ravenwing Warlord Traits and relics. Either way, still bad design.

 

22 minutes ago, Skywrath said:

EDIT: Just thinking about it, even him subjecting him to the INNER CIRCLE keyword is also another dead keyword, and actually more of a crutch. If he falls back and rolls a 11-12 on 2D6 1/11th or 1/12th of the time would keep him trapped in combat. And he doesn't care about morale tbh. 

Even he had the DEATHWING keyword, he would still have to take that morale test, as the Inner Circle ability would still be applied to him. The only functional purpose either keyword does for a datasheet like his, is allow him to be included in a Deathwing Vanguard/Arks of Omen detachment.

 

Note the rule Inner Circle (vs the keyword INNER CIRCLE...) granted is as follows under Dark Angels Detachment rules

Quote

Deathwing and Inner Circle units in Dark Angels Detachments that do not already have the Inner Circle ability gain the Inner Circle ability.

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Lion El Jason]

Yes this is very underwhelming, no doubt pretty much no reason to use him in 9th.

Optimistically, that's like 4 months TOP and I'm quite happy that this would be good in 10th.

[FerociousBeast]

I don’t care about competitive, but I do care about the rules reflecting the fluff, and I think there’s an excellent reason for the Lion not having the Deathwing keyword: he’s not Azrael++. 
 

He led the Legion before the Hunt became a thing. He never rose up through the Deathwing and into the Inner Circle. All that was an artifact of what the Legion did after losing their primarch and discovering that their Fallen brothers were still alive, scattered through space and time. 
 

If The Lion should have Deathwing, he should also have the Ravenwing, Ironwing, Dreadwing, Firewing, or Stormwing keywords. 

 

By the way, he’s not Azrael++ and he’s also not the Dark Angels’ Guilliman. What we’re hearing about his backstory is that he’s wandering through some foresty realm of existence, popping out and killing stuff like he was back in the good old days on Caliban. Chapter Master? Only time will tell if he actually wants to resume leadership of the Legion. He might be in his happy place right now, hunting traitors and camping in the woods. 
 

…and these woods are apparently attacking arks of omen, based on the latest warcom Dante article. 
 

Let’s wait and see.

[Interrogator Stobz]

With today's WarCom article about joining unit the Lion looks better defended.

Time will tell ofc.

[Emperor Ming]

29 minutes ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

With today's WarCom article about joining unit the Lion looks better defended.

Time will tell ofc.

Says he wont be able to join units

 

Units like abbadon would cut him down

[Interrogator Stobz]

We don't yet know Abbadons datasheet in 10th.

At least the Lion can't be shot outside 12" if he's not going it alone..... again, at this very early stage.

He may turn out suboptimal, it's really too early to tell.

[ValourousHeart]

Just to toss my 2 cents in on the whole missing the Deathwing and Infantry keywords.  Let me break this down mathematically.

 

The Lion has the Primarch Aura which he also benefits from.  Giving him Reroll 1s to hit an wound all game long.  It is not tied to a specific doctrine, not tied to melee only, and not tied to specific keywords.

 

Fealty - Sweep is S6 so is going to be wounding on 3+ vs T4-5 and 2+ vs T3 or less.

And Fealty - Strike is S10 so will be wounding on 3+ vs T6-9 and 2+ vs T5 or less.

 

So I ran the numbers wounding on 2+ and 3+ for both weapon profiles, assuming a 3+ save, and then running the same calculations assuming a 4++ save.  I won't bore you with all of the numbers, but here is the big one that matters to the question about the Deathwing super doctrine.  The Lion will be hitting 97% and wounding either 97% or 78%.

 

If he did have both Deathwing and Infantry keywords, he would get to reroll 2s against the targets he needs 3s to wound.  That would change the 78% wound chance to 89%.  That would most likely result in one additional wound getting past the armor save.

 

So I get where Skywrath is coming from, 89%+ chance to wound everything would be better than what we got.

But I also get where WrathOfTheLion is coming from. because 78%+ chance to wound everything is pretty damn good.

[Skywrath]

3 hours ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

We don't yet know Abbadons datasheet in 10th.

At least the Lion can't be shot outside 12" if he's not going it alone..... again, at this very early stage.

He may turn out suboptimal, it's really too early to tell.

 

If I may, with how auras are getting semi-retired in 10th ed, his aura will actually make him almost an auto-include. Here's why.

 

Based on what I seen on the community page, the Lt and Captain buffs will be only given to the one unit, while the Lion's buffs will be in an aura of 6", making him MUCH more valuable.  He will gain the LONE OPERATIVE keyword, but even without knowing the DA 10th ed rules, I don't see a scenario where you wouldn't have a 10m Deathwing block (either competitively or thematically) marching up the board as an honour guard. 

 

At this point I'm just going to assume the datasheet for the Lion is the 10th ed one, and if that happens to be the case, I will be very very happy playing my primarch. His stats are also in line with the leaked Gulliman's 10th ed datasheet, but more killier. This to me screams balance, and while I do prefer the leaked G-mans datasheet and WL trait, at the end of the day I play Dark Angels instead of Ultramarines for a reason :)

 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

Did we ever get a leaked datasheet of Guilliman for 10E? I know we had one for the canned 9E supplements, but given it didn't have OC or any of the other datasheet changes, it had to be for 9th. Could be another one on top of that leaked though.

 

But yeah, all the Chapter Master/Captain/Lieutenant auras will be replaced by a single buff on one unit, so any source of auras in 10E will be rarer and more valuable.

Edited April 12, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion