Wh40k 10th Edition Faction Focus: Leagues of Votann

[Dr. Clock]

I don't think we should necessarily assume that Eye of the Ancestors is the only Army Rule. Void Armour and Steady Advance are still on the table and would add back plenty of the 'missing' flavour, IMO.

 

It seems like common/terrain movement debuffs are disappearing in general though, so I don't really care about Steady Advance if it's a solution to a non-problem of M5" armies.

 

We should also not discount the possibility that the released 9th Ed. rules were overtuned to BS3+ at least in part so that the 'buy-in' price was a bit more acceptable to new customers. Looks like they'll end up more in line with AdMech or Sisters in terms of pure numbers, so still in the middle of the pack without being quite as dollar-efficient as your Marines or Custodes.

 

Also very interesting that the T5 base which is a 9th Ed sub-faction piece is just naturalized to the Index. I opted for the 5++ instead in the end, but I'll probably try next game with the T5.

 

At this point I think the biggest goodwill risk for GW with Leagues players would be Pioneers going to max. 3 per unit in the index, only to possibly becoming optional Battleline in a codex detachment when the 'dex comes? I suppose they could well just leave it at 6 in the index and then do the 'forced combat-squad' move in the codex... IMO that's the one thing that feels off in terms of pure unit size; those bases are just too big to feel good in units of 6, but it's a unit that feels like it shouldn't necessarily be limited to rule of 3 if you want a 'build-around'.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Dr. Clock

[Stupidity]

Never played vs Votann so I have no strong opinions on them being nerfed. Interesting to see another troop drop down to 4+ to hit though. It seems like a trend at this point that only the most elite of factions will have troops with 3+ to hit. Probably for the best as things are supposed to be becoming less lethal and there's always a few ways to bump them up to 3+ anyway. 

Watch out Aeldari, you're probably next! 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Stupidity

[Doobles57]

1 hour ago, Stealth_Hobo said:

 

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. 

Oh not saying that's nothing. But once you've got those CP the rule is doing nothing for you. You can forget about it for the rest of the game. That doesn't feel good when it's one of only 2 core rules you get get for your army now. 

[Doobles57]

21 minutes ago, Stupidity said:

 

Watch out Aeldari, you're probably next! 

I'd be OK with Guardians going to BS4+. They're meant to be ordinary citizens on military service essentially. If aspect warriors went that way though....... 

[phandaal]

On the plus side, after checking out reactions around the Net today, it seems like the hive mind has decided that Votann are no longer OP thanks to our Faction Nerf Focus. Lots of dancing on the grave of an army they never actually played a game against, but just knew in their hearts was OP because of a codex that never made it live.

 

So maybe I ought to be thanking GW, because we probably do still have some good stuff coming when the actual index releases.

[Orange Knight]

I don't know if anyone else feels the same way, but I really like these Votann changes.

 

To me, these guys are supposed to be miners and craftsmen with superior technology, but not necessarily hyper elite warriors. I think the new rules reflect that they aren't as outright capable as a Space Marine for example, but that they wield superior weapons and tough armor that make them durable and offensively potent.

[RolandTHTG]

19 minutes ago, Doobles88 said:

I'd be OK with Guardians going to BS4+. They're meant to be ordinary citizens on military service essentially. If aspect warriors went that way though....... 

Honestly, I could see the non-focused aspect stat go down to 4+ for aspect warriors without issue. i.e regular Banshee pistols are 4+, regular Fire Dragon ccws are 4+, etc. 

[sandrorect]

23 minutes ago, Doobles88 said:

I'd be OK with Guardians going to BS4+. They're meant to be ordinary citizens on military service essentially. If aspect warriors went that way though....... 

 

One thing is the basic soldiers of Xenos armys are BS4+ and another diferent is that only the marines and sisters are the only armies with BS 3+

 

The grace of the space marines is that their basic troops are as good as the elite soldiers of other races.

[FarFromSam]

I have yet to play or see votaan. I wonder if it's their rules or their looks that keep folks in my area away.  More than likely I just need to get out more.  

[brother_b]

Doesn’t surprise me the basic BS went to 4, they won’t start at 3 and go to a 2+ BS with judgement tokens.

 

I bought the starter set and have been slowly building the army. I’m not sure how I feel as I’ve never played with them before.

 

I love the Hekaton and own one model so I’ll still use that and I love the hearthguard. I doubt they’ll be T6 but that would be insane.

Edited May 11, 2023 by brother_b

[tinpact]

Hey, this might be a good way for Sisters to use their 1s - about to wipe out a Kin unit? Sister Generica sneezes and misses the last shot, and the day is saved.

[Burni]

53 minutes ago, sandrorect said:

 

One thing is the basic soldiers of Xenos armys are BS4+ and another diferent is that only the marines and sisters are the only armies with BS 3+

And AdMech. I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of sisters being BS3. Just never made sense to me. 

[Lord_Ikka]

After my last two terrible games vs Votann in my Knights, I'm happy to see Judgement Tokens toned down. 

 

Points will be interesting- with the nerfs to BS/WS and losing void armor, the space dwarces should be seeing a definite point decrease.

[Sea Creature]

Still even though and I’m sure they will see a significant point reduction it has to hurt some.

[phandaal]

34 minutes ago, Lord_Ikka said:

After my last two terrible games vs Votann in my Knights, I'm happy to see Judgement Tokens toned down.

 

Votann are still going to be strong against Knights. Maybe not quite as oppressive as auto-wounding, but there is going to be a lot of +1 to hit, +1 to wound fire coming towards the limited models in your army.

[jaxom]

2 hours ago, Doobles88 said:

Oh not saying that's nothing. But once you've got those CP the rule is doing nothing for you. You can forget about it for the rest of the game. That doesn't feel good when it's one of only 2 core rules you get get for your army now. 

The less powerful Faction and Detachment rules, the more room there is for powerful units which won’t cost an arm and a leg. I’m reserving judgement until we see Hearthguard, Bikers, and Cthonians (because they currently do a lot of heavy lifting).

[Vanger]

3 hours ago, Dr. Clock said:

I don't think we should necessarily assume that Eye of the Ancestors is the only Army Rule. Void Armour and Steady Advance are still on the table and would add back plenty of the 'missing' flavour, IMO.

 

[...]

 

Aside from the EotA, no other army rule is mentioned on the datasheets. So far we only have 1 faction (tyranids) with 2 confirmed army rules, which also appear on their datasheets.

 

But there is a lot of space on the 2 sides of piece of paper, so who knows?

 

I've personally put a grudge token on the devs for this.

[Lord_Ikka]

31 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Votann are still going to be strong against Knights. Maybe not quite as oppressive as auto-wounding, but there is going to be a lot of +1 to hit, +1 to wound fire coming towards the limited models in your army.

+1 to Hit just turns them back to 3+, so that's a wash. +1 to wound is much better than having 4+/5+ to Hit auto-Wounding, as it doesn't completely invalidate a Knight's Toughness. It is still a strong benefit, but not as punishing for an army like Knights that is so reliant on toughness as a form of durability.

 

They'll be decent versus Knights, but not nearly as bad as it was in 9th.

[Urauloth]

This is actually the first I've seen of Leagues in terms of stats, so I don't have anything to compare it to. Looks fine to me.

I wouldn't want to gamble 50/50 on if my big juicy gun hits something or not, though, so that big railgun on the land fortress looks a bit iffy. That's a lot happening in-game based on the dice equivalent of a coin toss; I thought big guns generally migrated towards multiple attacks to avoid this kind of all or nothing mechanic?

[Tokugawa]

4 hours ago, Dr. Clock said:

I don't think we should necessarily assume that Eye of the Ancestors is the only Army Rule. Void Armour and Steady Advance are still on the table and would add back plenty of the 'missing' flavour, IMO.

 

It seems like common/terrain movement debuffs are disappearing in general though, so I don't really care about Steady Advance if it's a solution to a non-problem of M5" armies.

 

We should also not discount the possibility that the released 9th Ed. rules were overtuned to BS3+ at least in part so that the 'buy-in' price was a bit more acceptable to new customers. Looks like they'll end up more in line with AdMech or Sisters in terms of pure numbers, so still in the middle of the pack without being quite as dollar-efficient as your Marines or Custodes.

 

Also very interesting that the T5 base which is a 9th Ed sub-faction piece is just naturalized to the Index. I opted for the 5++ instead in the end, but I'll probably try next game with the T5.

 

At this point I think the biggest goodwill risk for GW with Leagues players would be Pioneers going to max. 3 per unit in the index, only to possibly becoming optional Battleline in a codex detachment when the 'dex comes? I suppose they could well just leave it at 6 in the index and then do the 'forced combat-squad' move in the codex... IMO that's the one thing that feels off in terms of pure unit size; those bases are just too big to feel good in units of 6, but it's a unit that feels like it shouldn't necessarily be limited to rule of 3 if you want a 'build-around'.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

There is "Abilities - faction : Eyes of ancestors" clearly printed on upper right part of the data cards. Yes, some faction may have more than 1 army abilities, but Fortress is the "most elite" type unit , it still doesn't have "void armor", or any evidence about such mechanic could be tolerated to exist in 10th.

[spessmarine]

They got rid of that pointless "HunTR" type which is nice.

They also certainly took an axe to the faction; dropped Beam, pointless HunTR, and Magna. Among other things. Think that is a grudging!

[Dr. Clock]

4 hours ago, Vanger said:

Aside from the EotA, no other army rule is mentioned on the datasheets. So far we only have 1 faction (tyranids) with 2 confirmed army rules, which also appear on their datasheets.

 

3 hours ago, Tokugawa said:

There is "Abilities - faction : Eyes of ancestors" clearly printed on upper right part of the data cards. Yes, some faction may have more than 1 army abilities, but Fortress is the "most elite" type unit , it still doesn't have "void armor", or any evidence about such mechanic could be tolerated to exist in 10th.

Yes indeed - cheers for that. It does seem all but confirmed that it's gone as core army rule. Maybe we'll see it as a Stratagem like Armour of Contempt?

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Malakithe]

Everyone is looking at this in a vaccum instead of comparing it to all the other faction focuses so far. Based on these changes and Guard and Necrons it looks like they are were they should be. Im not seeing any nerfs since its a complete redesign across the board.

 

Plus these are just a sprinkling of the index and not even when the actual codex comes out which will very likely add way more layers of rules/abilities

[Mogger351]

2 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Everyone is looking at this in a vaccum instead of comparing it to all the other faction focuses so far. Based on these changes and Guard and Necrons it looks like they are were they should be. Im not seeing any nerfs since its a complete redesign across the board.

 

Plus these are just a sprinkling of the index and not even when the actual codex comes out which will very likely add way more layers of rules/abilities

It will only add layers of anything if GW completely scrap their entire design ethos. It's meant to be one in, one out.

[Petitioner's City]

14 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

 

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?

 

The big one with all the codex covers and getting my order mixed up - a silly mistake :)