Winners and losers of 10th Edition so far?

[Marshal Mittens]

While it's impossible to predict the future if the edition, after the Codexes, it seems there are some clear winners and lovers at the Index level.

 

For Winners, Eldar seem VERY strong. 

 

For losers, Admech and Deathguard seem just very weak compared to other armies. Crazy how many armies have FNP and -1 DMG stuff, but Deathguard lost its signature abilities. 

 

Admech was just very nerfed with lots of stuff just not making sense to me, and their units are often as or more expensive than simular units with better stats in other armies.

 

What are the armies and units you all see as winners and losers so far? How do you feel about the balance of the indexes at release?

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Captain Idaho
Just edited the title autocucumber

[Emperor Ming]

Sisters are in the same boat as death guard

 

Thou I don't think death guard got saddled with silly fixed unit sizes so maybe worse than deathguard

[Blurf]

2 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

Sisters are in the same boat as death guard

 

Thou I don't think death guard got saddled with silly fixed unit sizes so maybe worse than deathguard

Sisters, Deathguard, Admech, Votann, and Harlequins Pure are the bottom 5 factions and it's not even close.

 

Once people figure out how to build the other armies, I would be shocked if any of these 5 are able to win 30% of their games in casual settings or ANY games in competitive settings. Outside of playing each other.

[Captain Idaho]

Well the tournament results always skew, because they'll play each other and poorer players at bottom of the tables and get some wins.

 

The real results would be if we had a record of top tier vs bottom tier. Like how many wins each army accrued against Eldar for example. I reckon the results would be shockingly poor.

[Ulfast]

What makes eldar so good? I have missed that and not have time to read about there army yet. Anyone that can help me understand them?

[Doobles57]

8 minutes ago, Ulfast said:

What makes eldar so good? I have missed that and not have time to read about there army yet. Anyone that can help me understand them?

From what I've seen so far, the incredible consistency their rules provide between the free rerolls per unit and Fate dice. It's pretty easy to line up a crazy powerful weapon (like those on a Wraithknight) and nigh-on guarantee a big chunk of damage. They don't seem to have been punished on points to make up for this either. The Iyandan wraith army that I've been building when they were amongst the weakest subfactions may stay on the shelf until the next balance pass because they do seem overly strong.

 

In terms of who got screwed, Ad Mech is the obvious one. And Votann seem to be paying the price for their OP rules that never even got used in 9th. Their rules don't seem good from either a power or flavour POV which is a shame.

[TrawlingCleaner]

3 minutes ago, Ulfast said:

What makes eldar so good? I have missed that and not have time to read about there army yet. Anyone that can help me understand them?

 

It's mainly Fate Dice and how they interact with certain things.

At the start of the turn you roll 12 dice, the results are what you can use to sub into any rolls you make during the game. For example, I have 2 6s and 2 5s in the Fate Dice Pool and I use 1 6 to sub in for an armour save to keep a model alive. This is similar to Sisters, except Sisters start with 0 and generate them as the game goes on.

Where it becomes obnoxious is that you can use those 6s to trigger Devastating Wounds and cause a load of mortal wounds. Things like Support Weapons or D-Cannons have Devastating Wounds so are easy targets to drop MW on enemies.

 

With all that said, once Devastating Wounds has been changed/Fate Dice has been changed to not interact with each other, I have a feeling Eldar are going to drop pretty heavily from top spot. Although that's definitely off-topic

 

To add to top tier is Knight and Chaos Knights. Towering lets Knights play a different game to other armies where they ignore normal LOS rules and are incredibly strong because of it. On top of very strong Chasis and weapons.

 

Daemons did very well from the Indexes as did 'Nids, I think both are just below Eldar, Knights, CK, SM.

CSM, TS, GSC and GK are all ones to watch IMO. All 4 have the tools to do very well in the right hands I think

[Karhedron]

17 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

It's mainly Fate Dice and how they interact with certain things.

At the start of the turn you roll 12 dice, the results are what you can use to sub into any rolls you make during the game. For example, I have 2 6s and 2 5s in the Fate Dice Pool and I use 1 6 to sub in for an armour save to keep a model alive. This is similar to Sisters, except Sisters start with 0 and generate them as the game goes on.

Where it becomes obnoxious is that you can use those 6s to trigger Devastating Wounds and cause a load of mortal wounds. Things like Support Weapons or D-Cannons have Devastating Wounds so are easy targets to drop MW on enemies.

 

I feel that Eldar MWs are being overblown here. You get 12 Fate Dice per game rather than per turn so you will probably only have 2 6s on average. Let's say you spend them both on triggering Devastating Wounds on  D-Cannons (D6+2 damage) so on average you will generate 11 MWs over the game and you also won't have those 6s to pass lucky saving throws etc. Also D-Cannons are only 24" range and not particularly durable meaning they can be shut down by shooting or assault. MW D-Cannons will probably catch out inexperienced players but are not too hard to counter and use up a finite resource (OK you can replenish Fate Dice but not quickly or easily).

 

By comparison, a 10-man Sternguard veteran squad firing their bolters at a target with Oath of Moment will also generate 11 MWs on average every single turn. They can do this every turn without expending any limited resources (no CPs or anything required for this). They also have 24" range and can be loaded into a Transport or Drop Pod so arguably are more flexible than D-Cannons.

 

I am not saying Sternguard are broken, I just think a lot of people crying that the sky is falling without having played a single game. D-cannons are only slightly stronger than in 9th edition and still have the same weakness of being relatively short-ranged and fragile.

 

Maybe the Wraithknight is stronger, I have only run mine a couple of times in 9th. I feel it loses out compared to IK's in that if you want an Invulnerable save, you have to sacrifice half it's weapons to take the shield upgrade. If you want a melee weapon, you also have to give up a gun. The 3 main IKs all get a gun, a melee weapon and an Invuln. The Wraithknight can never have more than 2 of those at a time.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Karhedron

[Doobles57]

39 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

 

To add to top tier is Knight and Chaos Knights. Towering lets Knights play a different game to other armies where they ignore normal LOS rules and are incredibly strong because of it. On top of very strong Chasis and weapons.

I think Imperial Knights are a step above Chaos Knights at the moment (sadly for me). The army-wide FNP and rerolls is much better than the battleshock shenanigans that CK have. Battleshock seemed like it was going to be a major factor this edition, but everything I've read so far from games played implies it's a bit of a nothing mechanic.

[Captain Idaho]

I actually too think that the problem with Eldar is less the Mortal Wounds and more the Fate Dice combined with rerolls for every unit in hits and wounds.

 

Just the raw consistency. A Fire Prism getting an automatic Overwatch hit, the D-Cannon piles the Mortal Wounds on with one hit, the ability to choose to "nope" damage with passing an Invulnerable save every turn...

 

It's a game of chance and the eldar rules override that. The feels badisies involved are immense, when there's little you can do against the attacks incoming.

 

Doesn't mean other factions don't need a prune to lessen their oppressive nature, but this eldar thing is head and shoulders above the rest.

[Prim]

I played a game with my CSM vs. Eldar. Turn 1 the Eldar player used Fate Dice to auto-pass invulnerable saves and then used 6's for the variable damage on Bright Lances to remove my Helbrute and Venom Crawler. They didn't even need Mortal Wounds. 

 

Eldar are probably better off in a small game but weaker in a big game as their Fate Dice don't scale. At 1000 points they can focus those dice on removing high value targets. At 3000, the effects of the dice will be more diluted. 

[Arkhanist]

I think having it so fate dice (and miracle dice, and other versions of the same idea) can't trigger 'on a natural roll of' abilities, such as lethal hits and devastating wounds would go a long way to reducing that, and would probably be most of the balancing needed for craftworlds.

 

Other factions are going to need their excessive stuff tweaking too of course, and there's plenty of those. (phobos lieutenant allowing reivers to deepstrike, move after shooting and still charge from like 3" is one that springs to mind). Sisters need a massive repointing, and votann too I think. Death Guard and Ad mech though, the problem is more weak rules I think.

[Arkhanist]

13 minutes ago, Prim said:

I played a game with my CSM vs. Eldar. Turn 1 the Eldar player used Fate Dice to auto-pass invulnerable saves and then used 6's for the variable damage on Bright Lances to remove my Helbrute and Venom Crawler. They didn't even need Mortal Wounds. 

 

Eldar are probably better off in a small game but weaker in a big game as their Fate Dice don't scale. At 1000 points they can focus those dice on removing high value targets. At 3000, the effects of the dice will be more diluted. 

 

I think Eldar are intended to be a glass cannon though; they should hit like a truck turn 1 & 2 (assuming they use up their best fate dice) but then get significantly weaker having used them up and as their T3 models go down like bowling pins. Obviously the trick is balancing it so that they don't hit SO hard that there's nothing much left to hurt them by turn 3. Scaling quantities of fate dice to game size would make also make sense.

[jaxom]

I was looking through the Votann rules and it looks like there are bunch of ways to apply Judgement Tokens without your units dying. Was it on points that they got hit?

[Arkhanist]

More that their stats and abilities got hefty downgrades without a points cut to go with it as I understand it.

[Ahzek451]

Death guard look to be at the very bottom of the list. 40k requires movement, and Death guard took a hit on their movement stats, their army special rules do little to add to the game in and edition where toughness went up, and subtracting 1 does little. They don't feel reseliant, and one would think that if you are trading speed, you would get a decent defensive boost. 

Votaan struggle like admech.

Dark eldar don't necessarily struggle, it's just that their combat hits like paper, but their shooting went up. 

Some of the big winners are the obvious Eldar, Space Marines with oath of moment, and t.sons....but only in the right hands and when particularly sneaky combos are pulled off. 

[ThePenitentOne]

1 hour ago, Arkhanist said:

I think having it so fate dice (and miracle dice, and other versions of the same idea) can't trigger 'on a natural roll of' abilities, such as lethal hits and devastating wounds would go a long way to reducing that, and would probably be most of the balancing needed for craftworlds.

 

That would be a typical case of GW over reacting, like when they banned Valkyrie Air Cavalry for the Guard because Ork and Admech flyers were too good.

 

Eldar are OP. Fix Eldar. Sisters are not OP. Leave them alone. Quite frankly they need all help they can get at this point. Fixing the broken things is good, but fixing ONLY the broken things is better.

 

[Blurf]

3 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

I feel that Eldar MWs are being overblown here. You get 12 Fate Dice per game rather than per turn so you will probably only have 2 6s on average. Let's say you spend them both on triggering Devastating Wounds on  D-Cannons (D6+2 damage) so on average you will generate 11 MWs over the game and you also won't have those 6s to pass lucky saving throws etc. Also D-Cannons are only 24" range and not particularly durable meaning they can be shut down by shooting or assault. MW D-Cannons will probably catch out inexperienced players but are not too hard to counter and use up a finite resource (OK you can replenish Fate Dice but not quickly or easily).

 

By comparison, a 10-man Sternguard veteran squad firing their bolters at a target with Oath of Moment will also generate 11 MWs on average every single turn. They can do this every turn without expending any limited resources (no CPs or anything required for this). They also have 24" range and can be loaded into a Transport or Drop Pod so arguably are more flexible than D-Cannons.

 

I am not saying Sternguard are broken, I just think a lot of people crying that the sky is falling without having played a single game. D-cannons are only slightly stronger than in 9th edition and still have the same weakness of being relatively short-ranged and fragile.

 

Maybe the Wraithknight is stronger, I have only run mine a couple of times in 9th. I feel it loses out compared to IK's in that if you want an Invulnerable save, you have to sacrifice half it's weapons to take the shield upgrade. If you want a melee weapon, you also have to give up a gun. The 3 main IKs all get a gun, a melee weapon and an Invuln. The Wraithknight can never have more than 2 of those at a time.

this is just not correct.

1. With Eldrad, you get 15 dice. 

2. You can reroll those dice to fish for 6s. Most of the time you'll start with 3-5.

3. Farseers exist. Combine those things and you can easily guarantee 20+ mortal wounds. Also, Eldar can do that at any range, ignoring all terrain, using nearly invulnerable units.

4. You have multiple ways to earn more dice.

5. You can do those mortal wounds on your opponent's turn thanks to overwatch.

6. You're not doing those MWs over the course of the game. You're doing them immediately, before your opponent can respond.

7. That's not even the only broken thing Eldar can do. Nick Nanavati had an EXCELLENT rant about how absurdly OP Eldar are.

 

The fact that you think a Wraithknight cares about a melee weapon or an invul, tells me all I really need to know. 

2 hours ago, Arkhanist said:

I think having it so fate dice (and miracle dice, and other versions of the same idea) can't trigger 'on a natural roll of' abilities, such as lethal hits and devastating wounds would go a long way to reducing that, and would probably be most of the balancing needed for craftworlds.

 

Other factions are going to need their excessive stuff tweaking too of course, and there's plenty of those. (phobos lieutenant allowing reivers to deepstrike, move after shooting and still charge from like 3" is one that springs to mind). Sisters need a massive repointing, and votann too I think. Death Guard and Ad mech though, the problem is more weak rules I think.

You can just remove Sisters from the game then. There's no reason to make us suffer more than we already are. Just take us out behind the shed.

[Arkhanist]

32 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

That would be a typical case of GW over reacting, like when they banned Valkyrie Air Cavalry for the Guard because Ork and Admech flyers were too good.

 

Eldar are OP. Fix Eldar. Sisters are not OP. Leave them alone. Quite frankly they need all help they can get at this point. Fixing the broken things is good, but fixing ONLY the broken things is better.

 

 

I was thinking so it would be more consistent in the rules, rather than one set of rules for that set of special dice, and another one for those ones. Virtually every time I hear an eldar player defend fate dice, they start with 'buuuuut miracle dice'

 

Obviously sisters are significantly underpowered at the moment and nerfing miracle dice would make that worse. But sisters currently need substantial fixes anyway, such as large reductions in points for starters (as I mentioned), so you could account for that at the same time.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Arkhanist

[MoshJason]

20 minutes ago, Arkhanist said:

 

I was thinking so it would be more consistent in the rules, rather than one set of rules for that set of special dice, and another one for those ones. Virtually every time I hear an eldar player defend fate dice, they start with 'buuuuut miracle dice'

 

Obviously sisters are significantly underpowered at the moment and nerfing miracle dice would make that worse. But sisters currently need substantial fixes anyway, such as large reductions in points for starters (as I mentioned), so you could account for that at the same time.

 

I wouldn't remove the miracle dice's ability to trigger crits - they are literal miracles, and it's hard enough to generate enough to matter as it is - and they are different faction traits - they can be different! Eldar gets more dice, tons of ways to manipulate it, and a strong alpha strike. We can get triggering criticals. It's really not that much.

 

really the big thing sisters need back is the ability to get a cover save. It really removes a lot of strategy, especially since we are T3 3+ save 1 Wound - we need to be able to choose to cover for any little bit of survivability. And then we either need BSS to drop by 2 pts a model, or the ability to take 5 sister squads. Cheaper characters would go a long way, as well, 40 pts to give a 10 wound, T3 3+ (max) Squad a 5+ FNP? That squad is getting wounded so easily by Lasgun Equivalents that it's not worth it on any BSS. Just put those 40 pts towards another squad. Our characters didn't go down in pts despite going from affecting half my 100 model army to now affecting 10 models max.

 

A bloody rose detachment (+1 Attack AND +1 Str or -1 AP on the Charge) would fix the melee units again. Retributors need to drop some points, because they cost 10 pts more than Devastator marines for literally no benefit, and a lot of minuses.

 

When you fix all of that, you can make our one saving grace worse because another army has it, but better, and combos with it better.  

Edited June 20, 2023 by MoshJason

[phandaal]

Fate Dice should be changed to work once per unit per phase. That is still consistent, combined with their rerolls, but it prevents the early game mega-spikes people can do by blowing through their Fate dice early on.

 

Combo that with changing Devastating Wounds to something like +1/2/3 Mortal Wounds per critical wound, and removing the interaction between Anti and Devastating Wounds.

 

That would be a huge step in the right direction.

[MoshJason]

21 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Fate Dice should be changed to work once per unit per phase. That is still consistent, combined with their rerolls, but it prevents the early game mega-spikes people can do by blowing through their Fate dice early on.

 

Combo that with changing Devastating Wounds to something like +1/2/3 Mortal Wounds per critical wound, and removing the interaction between Anti and Devastating Wounds.

 

That would be a huge step in the right direction.

Anti- and Devastating Wounds *is clearly intended* - and shouldn't be removed, otherwise pts costs for a lot of units relying on that (such as the Knight Valiant) need to be carefully reconsidered - the Valiant's Harpoon *only* works if it's 4+ to wound turns a vehicle into scrap without saves - otherwise, it's too big of a one shot weapon to be reliable - since a lot of factions have invulns on their tanks, and armies like Sisters/Eldar can just go, nope, didn't go through, or you can command re-roll that 5+ invuln save to waste their big one shot weapon.

 

Eldar's big issue looks like they are cheap for the amount of damage they can dish out, and that they can alpha strike hard. Fate Dice should be changed to work once per unit per phase is the same as sisters, and would drastically curb their power, and then maybe a points increase on the scary units if that doesn't fi it. Let's not change things for nonbroken or Underpowered factions to bring Overpowered Factions in Line.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by MoshJason

[phandaal]

33 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

Anti- and Devastating Wounds *is clearly intended*

 

So what? I don't care if GW intended to do something stupid. It is a bad mechanic and should be removed from the game.

[Rain]

4 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

I actually too think that the problem with Eldar is less the Mortal Wounds and more the Fate Dice combined with rerolls for every unit in hits and wounds.

 

Just the raw consistency. A Fire Prism getting an automatic Overwatch hit, the D-Cannon piles the Mortal Wounds on with one hit, the ability to choose to "nope" damage with passing an Invulnerable save every turn...

 

It's a game of chance and the eldar rules override that. The feels badisies involved are immense, when there's little you can do against the attacks incoming.

 

Doesn't mean other factions don't need a prune to lessen their oppressive nature, but this eldar thing is head and shoulders above the rest.

The mechanic of substituting dice rolls for known set values just shouldn’t exist in a game like this. If it absolutely has to exist for some reason, it should be strictly limited to 1 per unit per phase as others have said, or only to a certain kind of roll.

 

The removal of variance in general sucks. Gratuitous rerolls, fate dice, etc. all take drama out of the game. Sometimes that big scary gun should just whiff 3 turns in a row. Weird stuff should happen, it’s memorable.

 

I still remember back in 3rd edition, losing 3 Chaos Terminators in 1 round of close combat against Guard due to awful rolls on my part and great rolls on my opponent’s part. Don’t remember or care how that game ended, but I remember all the 1’s I rolled.
 

I also remember (again circa 3rd/early 4th) my daemon prince rolling like an absolute lad and wiping a GK Terminator squad single handedly. The guy I was playing (who was a lot older than me at the time) tried to get me to reroll the dice because I rolled “his dice” for my attacks, leading me to pack up my stuff and leave. People can suck, but variance is fun.

[Captain Idaho]

I was this old when I found out the Eldar Fireprism was only 125pts 

 

Just had a goosey and wow, Eldar are cheap in some absurd areas.