Wh40k 10th Edition Faction Focus: Leagues of Votann

[Lord Marshal]

9 minutes ago, phandaal said:

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.

 

I was thinking the same thing looking around the internet and the reaction to it. Seems they succeeded.  

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[Lemondish]

13 minutes ago, BluejayJunior said:

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. 

 

The judgment tokens give a bonus that takes the army back into hitting on 3's as they go from 3+ BS to 4+ baseline while having, at least as this point, substantially fewer ways to apply tokens. That's a pretty massive reduction in lethality, alongside weapon nerfs across the board. This feels less like the standard reductions we're seeing and more of a wholesale shift from elite to horde MSU.

 

While defensively they go from reducing AP and disabling wound rerolls to T5, which is a pretty decent swap.

[MaximusTL]

i just noticed, Sword, Axe and Fist all got rolled into one profile. Sword and Axe i understand, but I would've thought the fist would have remained seperate.

[Lemondish]

12 minutes ago, phandaal said:

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.

 

Yeah, I'm actually terribly disappointed. Hopefully the eventual next wave of models and Codex comes with rules more inspired than this...muck. 

 

Well, those unhappy with playing against Votann should feel better now that they're vanilla as hell.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Lemondish

[Doobles57]

1 minute ago, MaximusTL said:

i just noticed, Sword, Axe and Fist all got rolled into one profile. Sword and Axe i understand, but I would've thought the fist would have remained seperate.

Yeah that's disappointing and seemingly at odds with marines profiles. I'm all for consolidating power weapons, but power fists are a distinct weapon in 40k and should still be their own thing in my eyes.

[Lemondish]

3 minutes ago, Doobles88 said:

Yeah that's disappointing and seemingly at odds with marines profiles. I'm all for consolidating power weapons, but power fists are a distinct weapon in 40k and should still be their own thing in my eyes.

They also lost an attack per model.

 

Seems Hearthkyn have taken more of a hit to lethality than any other unit we've seen thus far. Reductions in damage, AP, BS, attacks, some range reductions, and completely lost their army rule.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Lemondish

[WrathOfTheLion]

10 minutes ago, Lemondish said:

 

The judgment tokens give a bonus that takes the army back into hitting on 3's as they go from 3+ BS to 4+ baseline while having, at least as this point, substantially fewer ways to apply tokens. That's a pretty massive reduction in lethality, alongside weapon nerfs across the board. This feels less like the standard reductions we're seeing and more of a wholesale shift from elite to horde MSU.

 

While defensively they go from reducing AP and disabling wound rerolls to T5, which is a pretty decent swap.

Yeah, the judgment token is only giving back what was taken away, so it's not that great. I personally was expecting them to get Lethal Hits from it, which would still be a toned down version as compared to what they have now.

 

Feels like they overcompensated perhaps? I definitely like that they're harder to get, things like earning them from scoring were over the top, but not sure they needed to restrict it that much while simultaneously toning down its bonuses to that degree. We'll have to see how it works in the end.

 

Sounds like the classic GW 'We can do A to fix the problem, or B to fix the problem, but why not just hit it with both?'

Edited May 11, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion
spelling

[Khornestar]

Best part of the article! ;)

 

[Dark Legionnare]

36 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

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. 

Who'da thunk, right?

It's almost like 33% of that "Universal Special Rules"  acronym is the word "Universal."

[Dr. Clock]

11 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Hope the actual Index brings a little more excitement.

I'm gonna wager that the character suite will be critical to this; as-is I see alot of units feeling like they need a bit of a buff to be reliable.

 

This does seem alot more like 'shooty orks' or 'tough Guard' than 'aggro T'au', which will be fine with me in the main.

 

Agreed on the need for quite a points drop, but honestly I like taking a few more toys. Never feels like it's 40k unless I've got at least 3 basic infantry units, and right now I feel like the army needs 1 or 2 more tech pieces to be interesting without being just a blaster list.

 

Honestly it'll still be just a bit strange if AdMech, Sisters and Eldar are all just BS3+ across the board at this rate. I was doubting that shuriken catapults would keep their AP-1, but if Guardians go back to BS4+, they'll certainly need it! Same with AdMech? I like their guns as-is right now, and we could see BS4+ as a generalized 'middle of the road' stat to make the BS3+ armies and units stand out a bit more. Feels like they need to avoid the general tendency to always say 'the bigger the gun the better the BS'. It makes abundant sense to me that getting to a BS4+ is harder with a more complex gun, ergo the trooper with the better gun is still 'more elite' than the flashlight mob.

 

Super interesting, just give it to me now!

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Lemondish]

12 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

Feels like they overcompensated perhaps?

 

Provided we see massive points costs reductions across the board, to the point where folks are able to bring massive horde kin instead of the elite style they have now, things might end up okay. Points probably would need to start closer to their launch level, with reductions down from there for a handful of the hardest hit units. The Land Fortress didn't change much, but seeing how Hearthkyn were neutered makes me think we'll see the same happen across the board for their infantry, and this poor faction doesn't have the unit options to support that.

 

The more I think about this the more I become even more disappointed. That detachment bonus really irks me. Settle one grudge, one time, for a bit of CP and gain nothing from the detachment for the remainder of the battle.

 

Hopefully the rest of the Index creates some semblance of faction identity because right now they feel so bland. Good for all those who hated playing against Votann, but a poor outcome for anybody that enjoyed playing as them. Throwing away units just to regain some of that lost lethality feels so counter to the faction that seemingly is supposed to care about each other. A rare miss for me, as I've been pretty impressed with everything else thus far. 

[phandaal]

15 minutes ago, Lemondish said:

 

Yeah, I'm actually terribly disappointed. Hopefully the eventual next wave of models and Codex comes with rules more inspired than this...muck. 

 

Well, those unhappy with playing against Votann should feel better now that they're vanilla as hell.

 

For sure, people who dislike Votann seem to be very pleased with the reveal.

 

Very boring rules though. No active way to apply the faction-defining rule (or at least none that was shown), Oathband rule is a one-time debuff to a single enemy unit. Just bland.

 

Holding out hope that the Index has the good stuff, and the lack of "wow" was for the persistent anti-Votann crowd.

[Petitioner's City]

37 minutes ago, phandaal said:

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.

 

But the thing is, all of these rules were probably written by the time the Votann released - if the codex is coming out this autumn, it was probably finished in Autumn 22, and thus worked on before the real release of the squats last year.

[phandaal]

5 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

 

But the thing is, all of these rules were probably written by the time the Votann released - if the codex is coming out this autumn, it was probably finished in Autumn 22, and thus worked on before the real release of the squats last year.

 

It is not about when the rules were written (which is pure speculation), but which rules GW chose to show in the reveal.

 

4 minutes ago, KrakenBorn said:

However let's be real they needed to be reigned in; it's a shame they didn't showcase some cool changes to end on a positive though.

 

Pretty much this. I am not quite ready to take the Slayer Oath yet. Just hoping the fun stuff is yet to be shown.

[Sea Creature]

Looks like they are getting the GSC treatment. I appreciate all the nerfs. This will help get rid of their many stigmas.

[sandrorect]

1 hour 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.

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.

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

 

45 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

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. 

 

GW can make a USR "Objetive Secured" for some ex-Troops but GW want to do other thing: All units must have a special no core rule.

 

All datacard that we have seen, have a special rule, i think the reason is that all units fells... well special. If they some have a core rule but other have a "unique" one (although is share with others units) the first ones feels worse.

 

 

 

[Kallas]

6 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Just hoping the fun stuff is yet to be shown.

Conversion Beamers look pretty fun.

 

Sustained Hit d3, plus Critical Hits on a 4+ if shooting at more than 12", so each hit is actual d3+1 7/-1/3 wound rolls. That's pretty tasty, especially if they're piling out a Hekaton who tags something with a Bolt Cannon wound and uses Fire Support, so now those C-Beamer shots are rerolling wounds. That's ignoring Judgement Tokens, which may or may not be present.

[Lemondish]

15 minutes ago, KrakenBorn said:

I welcome these changes; I appreciate that Votann Bros probably don't like the  preview and I don’t blame them as it's pretty much a nerf-fest....

 

However let's be real they needed to be reigned in; it's a shame they didn't showcase some cool changes to end on a positive though.

 

You're right, there's not a single thing here to be excited about if you actually do enjoy playing the faction. The nerf fest was expected, even though this isn't a particularly overbearing or difficult to beat army. They're not taking over the competitive scene in any way.

 

But I do accept that people really did not enjoy certain parts of the Votann ruleset in 9th edition. Those issues are all completely gone now.

 

And in their place is some of the most uninspired rules I've seen yet.

 

Though I guess it's kind of neat that maybe thunderkyn will be a unit folks actually put on the table now?

[Petitioner's City]

19 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

It is not about when the rules were written (which is pure speculation), but which rules GW chose to show in the reveal.

 

My speculation for books is uusally based on the timetable from Twitch interviews with staff, most especially Andy Hoare talking about House of Chains in early 2020. He mentioned in that interview that the fifth House of book (Cawdor) had just been sent off to the printers for proofing and would be out in a year (of course it was then delayed due to the pandemic and take much longer!). It may be different for a few reasons - it's not 2020 anymore, and it's not a Specialist Game but a 40K book and may be ordered and printed differently - but since GW will be releasing lots of books this year, and next year, i imagine they've been in a rather extended production queue.

 

But saying not when the rules were written "but which rules GW chose to show in the reveal" doesn't make sense when you are projecting onto those rules the sense they were written in response to player feedback since September?

Edited May 11, 2023 by Petitioner's City

[Lemondish]

12 minutes ago, Sea Creature said:

Looks like they are getting the GSC treatment. I appreciate all the nerfs. This will help get rid of their many stigmas.

 

A pity that it now created stigmas for all those who liked the faction.

 

This whole MSU suicide squad identity they seem to be pushing for a faction of people that are supposed to all care about each other is such a weird direction to have gone.

 

Maybe the more interesting stuff and the synergies will come from unit rules because as it stands these faction rules and detachment rules are all really weak compared to what they are today.

[RolandTHTG]

8 minutes ago, sandrorect said:

 

 

GW can make a USR "Objetive Secured" for some ex-Troops but GW want to do other thing: All units must have a special no core rule.

 

All datacard that we have seen, have a special rule, i think the reason is that all units fells... well special. If they some have a core rule but other have a "unique" one (although is share with others units) the first ones feels worse.

 

 

 

Yeah, I think you're right that these are on sheets to be the special rule that unit has.
Also, I looks like that rule is only on one unit per codex, so it still feels like a unique rule until you start looking at other codices. That's probable why they aren't considering it a "universal" rule like Feel no pain or Melta, that might be on several units in a codex. 

[phandaal]

  

1 minute ago, Petitioner's City said:

But saying "the rules is a reaction to people thinking Votann were OP" doesn't make sense if those rules were written and finished in advance of said release that caused that understandable reaction in September, and saying "but which rules GW chose to show in the reveal" doesn't make sense when you are projecting onto those rules the sense they were written in response to player feedback since September?

 

What you imagine me saying is not actually what I said, which I suppose is why it makes no sense.

 

1 hour ago, phandaal said:

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.

 

I am saying the reveal feels like it was done for people who dislike the current rules, to show them those rules are gone in 10th edition. Nothing about when the rules were written. Yeah?

[jaxom]

1 hour ago, phandaal said:

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.

 

*Puts on game designer hat* From what we've seen, I expect the full game play loop to be: 1) Ruthless Efficiency on T1, 2) Spend CP on strats during T1-3 and some of those are more ways to apply Judgement Tokens, 3) Get CP from completing Ruthless Efficiency on T2/T3, 4) Use the newly gained CP for "big swing" strats in the later turns of the game (when most other armies are probably low-or-zero CP).  

 

52 minutes ago, MaximusTL said:

i just noticed, Sword, Axe and Fist all got rolled into one profile. Sword and Axe i understand, but I would've thought the fist would have remained seperate.

49 minutes ago, Doobles88 said:

Yeah that's disappointing and seemingly at odds with marines profiles. I'm all for consolidating power weapons, but power fists are a distinct weapon in 40k and should still be their own thing in my eyes.

 

The new heavy weapon is from the upgrade sprue so I expect Hearthkyn can also now take other weapons from the upgrade sprue. Kin melee weapon probably refers to those melee options from the upgrade sprue, and the Theyn options are picked from the Leagues of Votann Armoury.

 

 

[Doobles57]

21 minutes ago, Lemondish said:

 

But I do accept that people really did not enjoy certain parts of the Votann ruleset in 9th edition. Those issues are all completely gone now.

 

Some of the rules needed to go - and I say that as someone with a Votann army. The parts that removed interaction (no wound re-rolls across the board) or punished your opponent for simply playing the mission (JTs for being on an objective or doing an action) felt unfun to play as, let alone against. So I'm pleased about that. 

 

However, I agree what is left is.....meh. Putting aside the no void armour vs T5 or the reduction in WS/BS, the core rules seem bland. JTs new form feels like the direction I thought they might take Tau Markerlights. The detachment rule affects one unit vs marines choosing a different one to get bonuses against every turn. Also, if you do kill that unit turn 1, your rule does absolutely nothing for the rest of the game. Beam weapons are no more. 

 

Oddly, the Votann codex felt like they'd given each unit some special ability to try and make them all feel special and flavourful. Now we're moving to a new edition where nearly every data sheet will have a special rule and Votann seem to moving backwards.

 

The reveal does feel like a bit of an overreaction to the "REEEE VOTANN OP" crowd that still exists - despite the day 0 nerfs and repeated points increases meaning that they really aren't. I still get people in my group not wanting to play against them, so hopefully this'll stop that attitude if nothing else and I'll get more games in with them. Even if they're fat, slow Tau now.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Doobles88

[Lord Marshal]

16 minutes ago, Doobles88 said:

Even if they're fat, slow Tau now.

 

I've already seen people refer to the new Grudge Tokens as "Grudgelights" which made me chuckle.