September Balance/Munitorum discussion.

[Minsc]

The new munitorum field manual is here, and with it some hefty changes for our Votann:
 

Uthar down to 90 pts (-25 ppm)

Khal down to 70 pts (-20 ppm)

Iron-master down to 65 pts (-10 ppm)

Grimnyr down to 65 pts (-10 ppm)

Champion down to 65 pts (-10 ppm)

 

Hearthkyn down to 110 pts (-2,5 ppm)
Berserks down to 100/200 pts (-7 ppm)
Thunderkyn down to 75/150 pts (-6,67 ppm)
Hearhguard down to 150/300 pts (-3 ppm)

Pioneers down to 90/180 pts (-5 ppm)
Hekaton down to 225 pts (-20 ppm)

Sagitaur down to 100 pts (-20 ppm)

And to top it off, we go from 1 to 4 uses of Ruthless Efficiency @ 2000 pts.

Our winrate will probably increase with these changes (my latest list went from 2000 pts down to 1675 pts) , but I still can't help but feeling fairly ..."meh" about them. 

I want my LoV to be better, not cheaper, and the core issues with the army remain more or less the same as before (short-ranged, slow, lacking synergy, choices and... character I guess? I'd almost say they're "boring".) 

I also wish GW had changed how the token works (at least make it +1 WS/BS instead of +1 to hit) instead of doubling down on them, but it is what it is until we get our codex I suppose.

 

At least our units cost what they should've had when 10th launched, better late than never I guess. 
Anyone feeling more inclined to bring their space dwarves to battle now? 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Minsc

[Trokair]

Votann have gone from being a kind of MEQ Xenos to a GEQ Xenos since they were first released, if I wanted to play a Xenos guard equivalent I could have chosen GSC.  

 

While the point drops will no doubt help, I wasn’t after a hoard army, so having to play as one is meh. On top of which, my round about 3k (upgrade dependant) from 9^th can’t even make 2k now, at all, 1910 is what I think I can make it to. While points from one edition to another can’t be equated straight up, they are still a ball park indicator to me.

 

 

That said the change to Ruthless Efficiency is welcome as now the ability actually scales to larger games, and gives us enough Judgment tokens on the field. We can now use our army ability for more of the game. While there would usually be plenty of Judgment tokens out by the end a game, by then there was often be only a little benefit as everything on my side was in tatters.

 

 

Also, and I know it is a small sample size (8 games essentially), but in the Crusade at my locale store I have a 50% win rate so far. So we will see what happens going forward.

[phandaal]

Mechanically, the army is the same as it was on Wednesday.

 

The points drops will definitely help, and getting Judgment Tokens out there faster will remove some of the need for sacrificial units to ramp up the army's effectiveness. Changes to other armies will indirectly benefit Votann. Free strategems are not as strong anymore, Vect abilities are not as punishing, Devastating Wounds will not pick up an entire squad of Mininators.

 

So yeah, things will definitely be better, but this is still a band-aid on an unfinished, untested set of rules. The core still needs to be addressed whenever the Codex comes out in... 12 months? Well, :cuss:.

 

At least there is time to get some of this stuff fixed before the Codex goes to print, and we are still looking at a new model wave at some point. 10th just may not be the edition of the Space Dwarves.

[Doobles57]

So played a game last night with the new rules - 1500pts vs World Eaters. Didn't win but it was a close one. My Hekaton whiffing early (and poor screening on my part) meant Angron chopped it half and left me with no real answer to him. It was however much closer that the game I played last week against Knights which was just miserable from start to finish.

 

The 4 units for JTs at the start is an obvious band-aid approach but it does make a big difference in a number of ways.

• The obvious difference is a lot more JTs at the start of the game. Makes the early turns much more powerful for the army which is good. If uninteractive.
• Less reliance on Kahls. Still important, but with 4 times as many JTs out there at the start, it's less important to have Kahls around at all times. Not that our other characters are really exciting alternatives but whatever, that's another issue.
• Less reliance of splitting Warriors so they can die. Always hated this mechanic.
• Getting those 3CP is fairly easy. Before, I was putting the pre-game JTs on stuff I knew I needed to deal with. This was at times stuff that was tough to kill quickly regardless. Now I can still do that but also pick an easy target (in my game it was a Rhino) that I knew I could kill early to be able to bank those CP.

At 1500 points I certainly wasn't at horde levels. Far from it. And the obvious need in my list was another Hekaton and more Thunderkyn which won't change that either.

 

Do we still need a full rewrite to fix the poor synergies etc? Yes. Is the army now more usable and fun? Yes it is. 

[Minsc]

Fielding Angron at 1500 pts? Thats just mean...

I did some calculations and my entire Votann-collection is now only a measly 2595 pts (+ Enhancements).
Once it felt fairly large, now its more a case of "what to not bring"...

 

Spoiler

1 Iron-Master

1 Khal

1 Uthar
1 Champion

1 Grimnyr

 

60 Hearthkyn

10 Berserks
10 Hearthguard

3 Thunderkyn

 

12 Pioneers

2 Sagitaurs

2 Hekatons

 

 

Part of me wants to get 10 more Hearthguard (with different loadout from the ones I have) and 3 more Thunderkyn so I can field a full squad, but part of me doesn't want to spend more on my LoV at this point and instead wait until we get more fleshed out with more units - whenever that might be.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Minsc

[Doobles57]

On 9/9/2023 at 2:58 PM, Minsc said:

Part of me wants to get 10 more Hearthguard (with different loadout from the ones I have) and 3 more Thunderkyn so I can field a full squad, but part of me doesn't want to spend more on my LoV at this point and instead wait until we get more fleshed out with more units - whenever that might be.

 

 

This I can understand. Other than a Grimnyr I've got a least one of everything in the range. 3 more Thunderkyn and another Hekaton seem good choices for me regardless, but I agree beyond that I'm more tempted to wait for a possible range expansion. Give me my Mega-Iron-Kyn GW!