Wh40k 10th Edition Faction Focus: Leagues of Votann

[WrathOfTheLion]

52 minutes ago, phandaal said:

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

I don't play them, but like any faction, they should have something fun or interesting.

[ZeroWolf]

1 hour 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.

We know that the Votann codex isn't coming out till next summer at the very earliest, and possibly even longer. We already know which codex we're getting thanks to the road map.

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, phandaal said:

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.

 

Grudge Tokens get applied when enemy units kill your own units. If the enemy is failing to acquire enough Grudge tokens then it probably means the Votann are winning anyway.

 

I actually like this as the rule as it provides more benefits if the Votann are losing. Much better than a "win more" mechanic.

[Lemondish]

37 minutes ago, jaxom said:

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.

The only time we've seen the armoury mentioned is when the card specifically says to go look at it. This card doesn't say that, so I'm not convinced that that will be a normal thing for these data cards. Have you seen something else to suggest that referring to a separate card will be a normal occurrence, even if the unit cards never mention it?

 

Given the attacks characteristic for those melee weapons it kind of fits that that the kin one would be for the Theyn. After all, the close combat weapons are going down by one attack, and so too would the Theyn. So the weapon attacks seem to align, and that profile is a pretty decent mixture of the axe and sword. Given all the other nerfs, I suspect it's only natural to think that the fist is another casualty.

[Lemondish]

4 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

Grudge Tokens get applied when enemy units kill your own units. If the enemy is failing to acquire enough Grudge tokens then it probably means the Votann are winning anyway.

 

I actually like this as the rule as it provides more benefits if the Votann are losing. Much better than a "win more" mechanic.

 

A passive mechanic like this is totally fine when there are other more active rules surrounding a faction.

 

What we saw today is not active in any way.

[acrozatarim]

It may be that Kahls and other units have additional ways to apply or exploit grudge tokens, but yeah, at first glance a faction rule that only kicks in when your units get killed feels a bit underwhelming. It's not bad in terms of power, just not a lot to engage with on this initial display.

[Emperor Ming]

Not sure I like the up and down BS on units

 

Having to stay still to get the plus to hit, in a game of dash around and capture objectives,

 

Doesn't seem that fantastic

[tzeentch9]

So you need a judgement counter on something, just to get votann close to where they where before. This is a massive tearing down of the army, nothing hits better than a 4plus, and range and ap have all been neutered. Looks like they will need a lot of help from the unseen stuff to be playable 

[Scribe]

18 minutes ago, Lemondish said:

 

A passive mechanic like this is totally fine when there are other more active rules surrounding a faction.

 

What we saw today is not active in any way.

 

A mechanic that depends upon the actions of ones opponent, is not a great 'central' mechanic in today's world of design I think.

[Kallas]

23 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

Not sure I like the up and down BS on units

 

Having to stay still to get the plus to hit, in a game of dash around and capture objectives,

It's literally just the -1 to hit with Heavy weapons from 8/9e baked in, with Heavy giving a bonus to hit instead.

[jaxom]

32 minutes ago, Lemondish said:

The only time we've seen the armoury mentioned is when the card specifically says to go look at it. This card doesn't say that, so I'm not convinced that that will be a normal thing for these data cards. Have you seen something else to suggest that referring to a separate card will be a normal occurrence, even if the unit cards never mention it?

Because it's on the back of the cared, with the unit build options. We've not seen that for most units. I think we've only seen one card back so far:

So I expect there will be a bullet point for something along the line of "One Hearthkyn Warrior's bolt/ion weapon can be replaced with 1 kin melee weapon" and another along the line of "The Theyn's close combat weapon can be replaced with one of the following:" and those will be the options with the "**This weapon's profile can be found on the Leagues of Votann Armoury Card".

[Khornestar]

29 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

Not sure I like the up and down BS on units

 

Having to stay still to get the plus to hit, in a game of dash around and capture objectives,

 

Doesn't seem that fantastic

I sort of like it. You can’t have both the most powerful shooting and the mobility to achieve that stuff. Makes you use different units for different purposes, support each other, and have to make trade offs.

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

Im expecting another release wave for votann, some of these nerfs make me think back to when admech was released and had very few options but everything punched above its weight. Which was toned down with the new edition and the release wave making up the loss of power.

[bigtrouble]

1 hour ago, Kallas said:

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.

So the first attack, on a 4+ auto wounds, and if it’s a natural 6 it also produces d3 additional hits, but those additional hits can’t be auto-wound, right? I’m not 100% in the new definitions and how they interact. 

[sandrorect]

39 minutes ago, Lemondish said:

The only time we've seen the armoury mentioned is when the card specifically says to go look at it. This card doesn't say that, so I'm not convinced that that will be a normal thing for these data cards. Have you seen something else to suggest that referring to a separate card will be a normal occurrence, even if the unit cards never mention it?

 

Given the attacks characteristic for those melee weapons it kind of fits that that the kin one would be for the Theyn. After all, the close combat weapons are going down by one attack, and so too would the Theyn. So the weapon attacks seem to align, and that profile is a pretty decent mixture of the axe and sword. Given all the other nerfs, I suspect it's only natural to think that the fist is another casualty.

 

We don´t have see the back of the card that is were we see the armory card... and that was in a card that was FULL of weapons in its front side. I don´t think the votan have a armory card.

 

28 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

Not sure I like the up and down BS on units

 

Having to stay still to get the plus to hit, in a game of dash around and capture objectives,

 

Doesn't seem that fantastic

 

The thingh about you this is because is better to the player have a rule that give you a boon that a rule that give you a malus. The result maybe is the same but the sensations is differents. If you hit 3+ and have a malus if you move, all the time you move you think you are playing wrong; if you hit at 4+ but you have a bonus when you don´t move you think you have won a prize.

[phandaal]

24 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

A mechanic that depends upon the actions of ones opponent, is not a great 'central' mechanic in today's world of design I think.

 

We hope that Karls and Theyns can hand them out, since GW mentions it in the article. They did not show any of those rules yet though. Maybe we are getting some kind of character spotlight to show what various factions' characters can do.

 

Otherwise, we will find out some time next month when the Indices are released. Or sooner if a brave soul decides to leak them!

[Kallas]

1 minute ago, bigtrouble said:

So the first attack, on a 4+ auto wounds, and if it’s a natural 6 it also produces d3 additional hits, but those additional hits can’t be auto-wound, right? I’m not 100% in the new definitions and how they interact. 

 

Critical Hit = unmodified 6 to hit, automatic hit and triggers any rules that trigger on Critical Hit.

 

So a 4+ to hit will hit (assuming no -1 modifier) and cause an additional d3 hits because of the Sustained Hits d3 rule. If they are within 12", they can still get d3 extra hits but need to roll a 6, not a 4+.

[sandrorect]

2 minutes ago, bigtrouble said:

So the first attack, on a 4+ auto wounds, and if it’s a natural 6 it also produces d3 additional hits, but those additional hits can’t be auto-wound, right? I’m not 100% in the new definitions and how they interact. 

 

No, if a 4+ scrores a critical hits, it means when you get a 4+ you hit become a 6. 

 

So this weapon get 1d3 extra atacks when you get a 4+, also, as a 6 is a garanted hit, it means that don´t matter how many malus to hit have the enemy unit, you ALWAYS hit a 4+

[Scribe]

8 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

We hope that Karls and Theyns can hand them out, since GW mentions it in the article. They did not show any of those rules yet though. Maybe we are getting some kind of character spotlight to show what various factions' characters can do.

 

Otherwise, we will find out some time next month when the Indices are released. Or sooner if a brave soul decides to leak them!

 

I could really use a full leak of Daemons. I think thats going to be my 10th army. :D

[burningsky25]

Admittedly I've had almost no experience with Votann before, so was neat to read more about them even in a vacuum.  Votann has some good aesthetics, and it did seem like some of their flavour comes through, even if to a lesser extent than currently.  I'm not sure that the JT from casualties is necessarily bad . . it definitely matches the fluff overall.  I'm not sure it necessarily means that the player is incentivized to lose units in a manner contradictory to the ideals of Votann - I mean when I play warhammer most of my units consistently go dying on me despite me not wanting them to  But, that's me speaking as an outsider to this.

 

Speaking more generally; no one wants their army to be a casualty of it, (I play Necrons and warriors got the nerf too) but having more BS/WS4+ armies in the game is a hugely good thing.  The game suffers when 3+ becomes merely the assumed stat, both for lethality, and limitation of how to reflect distinctions between factions and units.  I think for both warriors, and votann they did a good job of making fairly accessible ways to mitigate this and give them +1 to hit, which is totally fine as a conditional thing.  We'll see how much this is applied elsewhere.  

 

Interestingly enough, reducing the offensive output of a unit can actually increase the effective defensive profile of that same unit.  Correct me if I'm wrong here but basically - if 5 models lands 2 MEQ wounds at range they have to be costed appropriately.  But if 5 models now can only land 1 MEQ wound at range . . . well now they can easily be costed significantly lower.  Might not be half price, but you get the idea.  Individual Kin might not be as durable, but units as a whole will stick around longer if they're larger.  I definitely hope this will be the case for Necron warriors, it would significantly help the silver tide effect.

 

I do hope that GW does a good job of making 4+ armies feel good to play, and not just like 2nd rate units.  Some of that is ultimately player perception of course as well.

 

 

[Petitioner's City]

2 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

We know that the Votann codex isn't coming out till next summer at the very earliest, and possibly even longer. We already know which codex we're getting thanks to the road map.

 

Road map reading incomprehension on my part! Sorry, I'd totally confused the two maps 

 

That does upend my point, ah well, back to my hobbit hole :)

[Stealth_Hobo]

2 hours ago, Doobles88 said:

 

2 hours ago, Doobles88 said:

 

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. 

 

 

 

I wouldn't say 3 CP is nothing. If you kill your target during first turn, being 3 CP ahead your opponent is pretty big advantage. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Stealth_Hobo
Sorry for the weird double quote

[ZeroWolf]

14 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

 

Road map reading incomprehension on my part! Sorry, I'd totally confused the two maps 

 

That does upend my point, ah well, back to my hobbit hole :)

 

No worries, didn't want you getting your hopes up over a release that wasn't happening (yet). 

What was the other map you confused it with?

[chapter master 454]

Lots of taking down but some interesting stuff all round. Grudge tokens no longer letting you outright ignore toughness and be the ultimate feels bad errata of all time? Good stuff. (and yes, the change to make Grudge tokens NOT combo with magna was dumb...it literally punishes you for using those weapons on targets you WANT to target).

 

The loss of beam weapons is sad but considering how much guff there was in them...not worth the trouble. Digging the new conversion rule though, maybe make the thunderkyn valid. T5 makes them fairly durable considering they have 4+ as well. Pretty tough to shift with just standard weapons and will likely come out on top in trades with other infantry troopers.

 

I will echo the issue though with the whole thing with troops getting sticky objectives all having a unique name and not being a USR at this point. I wonder if this is something they may fix later down the line as the design space may of been loaned out to other troops far down the design pipeline. Certainly deserves to be a USR at this rate. Comically though...the rule is meant to let units leave the objective to get other things done but yet so far I am pretty sure all units we have seen with this are all units you would generally just leave on the objective  anyway. I suppose it does mean that blasting the unit off the objective isn't enough, you need to go get it proper to deny it but still.

[phandaal]

21 minutes ago, chapter master 454 said:

I suppose it does mean that blasting the unit off the objective isn't enough, you need to go get it proper to deny it but still.

 

Also keeps you from losing the objective to battle-shock, unless your opponent sends something to take it. With the number of ways we have seen to force battle shock tests so far, that is pretty nice.