Wh40k 10th Edition Faction Focus: Leagues of Votann

[Lord Marshal]

That's A Grudgin'

 

[ZeroWolf]

Having not played Votann at all, how different are they from the current edition?

[Lord Marshal]

7 minutes ago, ZeroWolf said:

Having not played Votann at all, how different are they from the current edition?

 

Judgement Tokens were nerfed as expected. Rather than auto-wounds it's +1 To Hit and then +1 To Hit and Wound, rather than Auto-Wounds.

 

Standard Kin profile looks to have gone down from W/BS3 to W/BS4 which is a pretty big hit, but have gone up to Toughness 5.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[TrawlingCleaner]

Huntr as a weapon keyword is gone (all weapons are "Huntr" as a default now)

Kyn are T5

Rail weapons don't ignore invulns outright, they just have Devasting wounds (convert DMG to MW)

Judgement Tokens aren't busted (in good and bad ways) anymore especially as Auto-wounds are a gamewide thing now and not just locked to a few things

 

Pretty cool stuff in there, I wonder if that means Orks are going up to T5 now too!

Edited May 11, 2023 by TrawlingCleaner
Orks are already T5!

[HolyPestilience]

3 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

Huntr as a weapon keyword is gone (all weapons are "Huntr" as a default now)

Kyn are T5

Rail weapons don't ignore invulns outright, they just have Devasting wounds (convert DMG to MW)

Judgement Tokens aren't busted (in good and bad ways) anymore especially as Auto-wounds are a gamewide thing now and not just locked to a few things

 

Pretty cool stuff in there, I wonder if that means Orks are going up to T5 now too!

Orks are already T5

 

Maybe the increase in toughness is there to replace the loss of void armour?

[Doobles57]

5 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

Huntr as a weapon keyword is gone (all weapons are "Huntr" as a default now)

Kyn are T5

Rail weapons don't ignore invulns outright, they just have Devasting wounds (convert DMG to MW)

Judgement Tokens aren't busted (in good and bad ways) anymore especially as Auto-wounds are a gamewide thing now and not just locked to a few things

 

Pretty cool stuff in there, I wonder if that means Orks are going up to T5 now too!

Orks already are T5, not sure they'll go higher but you never know. 

 

Judgement tokens being nerfed was expected and needed. I imagine we'll see other ways to hand them out like we do now, but at least they don't punish your opponent for simply playing the mission any more. 

[Malakithe]

15 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

 

Judgement Tokens were nerfed into the dirt as expected. Rather than auto-wounds it's +1 To Hit and then +1 To Hit and Wound, rather than Auto-Wounds.

 

Standard Kin profile looks to have gone down from W/BS3 to W/BS4 which is a pretty big hit, but have gone up to Toughness 5.

 

I dont get the move to BS4 since they are supposed to be advanced soldiers and have superior tech

 

Also judgement tokens werent really nerfed as every faction now has auto wounds in many places

[Tokugawa]

As judgement mechanics reworked and void armor nuked, seems it come with a mass points cost reduction.

[Kallas]

Just now, Malakithe said:

I dont get the move to BS4 since they are supposed to be advanced soldiers and have superior tech

This is probably a move to give elite stuff more room. If everyone is BS3+, then that's not elite any more. Still awkward since they were BS3+ before though. Also, they are likely considering the buff to Judgement Tokens/Eye of the Ancestors to be part of that: they're BS4+ now, but with EotA they get +1 to hit and wound. 

 

I will say, my eyes boggled at the +1 h/w at first, but now that you mention that they've lost some accuracy it's definitely a less obnoxious rule. +1 to wound is still crazy good, but hopefully they've toned down JT access, so it's not just super easy to get these buffs all of the time.

 

Mostly looks like a healthy change (ie, removing some of the egregious power) with Votann still being strong (T5 certainly is strong).

[Noserenda]

One thing im noticing is for all their talk of USRs "returning" they are still using them under different names as unit abilities, like the sticky objectives for some troops choices and bonuses to wound enemies on objectives CSM and stealers got.

[MaximusTL]

Judgement tokens look better. As long as there's no way for Kahls or whoever to easily slap on more judgement tokens, it looks good. +1 to hit/wound is definitely strong, but not 'everything in my army wounds your knight on a 4+' strong. i don't think the +1 to hit is egregious given that there seem to be quite a bit of BS 4+. i think that this is a good spot.

 

Oathband looks solid. Putting it on a chaff/disposable unit like WE jakhals is an easy 3 CP, or you could slap it onto a big threat to either make them easier to deal with or make your opponent keep them out of the frontlines. 

 

beam weapons getting sustained hits d3 seems swingy but powerful. Conversion beamers look quite good, if you can keep them in the 12-24 inch bracket. I wonder if contemptor dreadoughts with their conversion beamers will have this rule. like many assumed, it seems most heavy weapons will have a lower BS than the default for their squad. 

 

they look to be in a good place.

[TrawlingCleaner]

16 minutes ago, HolyPestilience said:

Orks are already T5

 

Maybe the increase in toughness is there to replace the loss of void armour?

 

14 minutes ago, Doobles88 said:

Orks already are T5, not sure they'll go higher but you never know. 

 

Judgement tokens being nerfed was expected and needed. I imagine we'll see other ways to hand them out like we do now, but at least they don't punish your opponent for simply playing the mission any more. 

 

Right you are! What a numpty

[Commander Dawnstar]

4 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

I dont get the move to BS4 since they are supposed to be advanced soldiers and have superior tech

 

They're paying the Markerlight tax like T'au essentially.

 

Quite surprised by the design of their Detachment Rule. Totally appreciate wanting to give them a means to kickstart their gameplan as their ability to apply tokens (and lethality without them) has been knocked down a peg, but it feels weird to have an army rule you want to 'switch off' as soon as possible rather than something that lasts the whole game.

[davextreme]

I'm glad to see Void Armour gone. It's bad design to take away opponents' abilities.

 

(Previously Void Armour meant your opponent couldn't re-roll wounds, which unevenly punished some lists more than others.)

[Dark Legionnare]

I'm pretty sure I've seen sticky-objectives "Luck Has. Need Keeps. Toil Earns" somewhere else in these faction previews for another faction.

If I'm wrong, whoops! If I'm not, I thought they were streamlining rules writing, moving away from the same rule across multiple factions but under different names in each.

I get that in players' layman's terms we can all understand just saying "This unit has sticky objectives ability" but it's just a head shake of disappointment for their vaunted return of USR structure.

18 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

One thing im noticing is for all their talk of USRs "returning" they are still using them under different names as unit abilities, like the sticky objectives for some troops choices and bonuses to wound enemies on objectives CSM and stealers got.

Sunavab-.... Haha! I was literally typing up my response above on my phone saying the same. Beat me to it.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Dark Legionnare

[Lemondish]

51 minutes ago, ZeroWolf said:

Having not played Votann at all, how different are they from the current edition?

 

Pretty massive nerfs, all things considered. They appear to have completely lost Void Armour as a rule, which was essentially Armour of Contempt with an immunity to wound rerolls alongside, though Hearthkyn have gained a point of toughness to mildly compensate.

 

Beam weapons no longer exist, it seems. That's a loss of both a powerful unique faction weapon and flavour, so that's a big bummer.

 

Judgment tokens are completely neutered alongside what appears to be a faction wide reduction in BS from 3+ to 4+.

 

Most weapons, including their Bolters, have lost a point of AP and Ion Blasters lost a point of damage.

 

Magna weapons appear to still produce a ton of mortals on a critical wound (unmodified 6 to wound roll), but no longer ignore invulnerable saves.

 

Steady Advance seems to be gone, which is neither buff nor nerf but a loss of a small bit of flavour, if you will.

 

All the Theyn's melee profiles have been condensed into one profile it seems.

 

For the Land Fortress, Ion beamer lost a point of damage (and beam). A few other weapons lost AP.

 

All in all these are some pretty substantial nerfs.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Lemondish

[Khornestar]

Nice to see stat reductions vs. 9th edition, and not just increased T.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Khornestar

[silverstu]

I think the loss of void armour when AP has been mostly reduced this edition means T5 could be a good boost. Not wild about the BS4 WS4, I assume they will get a drop in points  but basically they will play differently but I'll adapt. Ion Blasters keeping -2 ap is nasty.

[Focslain]

My only real complaint with this is that the man-portable magna-rail is 18", should be 24" like the other heavy weapons in the unit.

 

The change to judgement tokens is a good one and not as OP as they are now. I do hope the Kahl kept his ability to assign a token per turn. It shouldn't be that bad if Long List is no longer a thing.

[Lemondish]

13 minutes ago, silverstu said:

I think the loss of void armour when AP has been mostly reduced this edition means T5 could be a good boost. Not wild about the BS4 WS4, I assume they will get a drop in points  but basically they will play differently but I'll adapt. Ion Blasters keeping -2 ap is nasty.

I also expect a pretty substantial points drop, too. I suspect they'll lean into being a horde army now since there is very little here to suggest they're elite like today. They will certainly need it. Losing damage on the ion blaster kinda sucks but lethality has to drop somewhere...

 

I do think Thunderkyn will finally rate well with the way Conversion and Sustained Hits interact. That's a neat thing to look forward to, but holy hell does this completely kill the current army as it exists today.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Lemondish

[WrathOfTheLion]

It looks like you don't earn judgment tokens for being on objectives anymore? I like that change the most. I think the worst part was that they started stacking just by virtue of playing the game.

[Karhedron]

25 minutes ago, Dark Legionnare said:

I'm pretty sure I've seen sticky-objectives "Luck Has. Need Keeps. Toil Earns" somewhere else in these faction previews for another faction.

 

I think you might be right. Here's a novel idea, if lots of ex-Troops units have this rule, they could create a USR to cover it, that would be streamlining. They could even give it a funky name like "Objective Secured" since it is used to secure objectives. 

[BluejayJunior]

1 minute ago, Lemondish said:

I also expect a pretty substantial points drop, too. I suspect they'll lean into being a horde army now since there is very little here to suggest they're elite like today. They will certainly need it.

 

I do think Thunderkyn will finally rate well with the way Conversion and Sustained Hits interact. That's a neat thing to look forward to, but holy hell does this completely kill the current army as it exists today.

They still have T5, which is nothing to sniff at. And the judgment tokens give a pretty substantial bonus. (I don't know much about them in 9th, so not comparing the two versions).

They may seem like harsh nerfs, but don't forget that the goal is to tone down lethality in the whole game. So hopefully, when the edition fully comes out, they will still feel effective. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

11 minutes ago, Lemondish said:

I also expect a pretty substantial points drop, too. I suspect they'll lean into being a horde army now since there is very little here to suggest they're elite like today. They will certainly need it. Losing damage on the ion blaster kinda sucks but lethality has to drop somewhere...

 

I do think Thunderkyn will finally rate well with the way Conversion and Sustained Hits interact. That's a neat thing to look forward to, but holy hell does this completely kill the current army as it exists today.

When they first came out, they were more horde-ish than elite (pre day 1 nerf). I think they leaned that way after substantial point increases, so more bodies is probably how they have always envisioned the faction looking in the table.

 

They just completely failed at making it match how they thought it should the first go round.

Edited May 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[phandaal]

Massive nerfs, as expected. Okay as long as it comes along with a points reduction. Will be nice to bring more toys to the table.

 

Judgement Tokens seem like an unsatisfying mechanic as presented. Hopefully there are more ways to apply them than just throwing out "chaff" to die. The Oathband feels uninspired. Pick a unit, add tokens, then no more interaction for the rest of the battle.

 

High toughness Hearthkin are nice, even better with the 6+++ from a medic. I like sticky objectives and agree that it should be a USR with how often it has come up.

 

All in all, a whelming reveal for the Votann. Feels more like a showcase for the people who were annoyed about current rules to let them know the stuff they disliked has been removed. Hope the actual Index brings a little more excitement.