Balance Dataslate thoughts

[Lord_Ikka]

What are everyone's thoughts on the Balance Dataslate? How are your lists changing or what are your tactics going to be going forward?

 

 

Personally, the only thing I really don't like is Bondsmen abilities reverting to Armiger-only again like last edition. It really hurts Knights  thematically because it feels like once again we are going to want to take more Armigers than big Knights, and that just doesn't feel good. It also sidelines the Lancer, as it can no longer Advance/Charge, which was the only reason to take it over a Questoris-class that is 40-60 points cheaper.

 

I might still try to run a 3 big Knight, 4 Armiger list, but I'm not expecting Knights to be nearly as good as they were, especially with Towering and Overwatch changes (RIP Acheron and Valiants....).

[sairence]

Yeah, I'm okay with the change to Towering...it now covers the niche were Knights actually needed help.

 

The point changes are so so, could have dropped the price on all the big ones a big again tbh.

 

The change to Bondsman I don't get. It invalidates a big part of the design of Knights and what makes them different from CK. We basically have a worse version of our 9th ed setup now, because we can apply less Bondsman effects.

 

My initial thought was to actually ditch all Armigers now. Run Canis, a Valiant, two Gallants and leave the secondary scoring to a Callidus and an Eversor. 

[Focslain]

This pretty much puts me to playing the same way i have for the last two editions. A pair of mediums with half a dozen armigars. Though my current 2K has a castellan, paladin, 3 warglaives, 2 helverins and a moriax. Going to see how this works out. Figure use the castellan's lance to deal with other knights/vehicles and let the others do the scoring. 

[chapter master 454]

Basically ok with the changes bar the Bondsman invalidating basically about a quarter of our points valid imo (part jest, only in by how much. I would however still rate it in the region of 25-75 points per model depending on their bondsman).

Overwatch change basically just means its a dead stratagem now completely. Armigers aren't even WORTH the CP to use it. I would of prefered CP tax on using it on the bigger stuff, basically making 2CP for titanics instead.

 

Tested a list where I ran 2 dominus (valiant and castellan) with a bunch of armigers...that failed spectacularly and mainly from one issue: a lack of Iron Storm missle pods. The ignore LoS shooting is far too important imo for dealing with the innumerable amount of units that only just sit on objectives out of line of sight and just rake in points. It is why Biovores are imo Tyranids BEST unit bar none, fight me, oh wait you can't because you got move-blocked and that spore mine scored me one of my secondaries and cost me ZERO points and the unit spitting them out...ahem...sorry...tangents...

 

While it may not be everyones preferred thing, I will point out that while exaction squads got nuked into the stratosphere, the inquisitor henchmen units are literally 40 points for 4 dudes with 2 wounds each. Even with a medic pack, they actually have more wound count than the exaction squad at 5 guys.

Only issue is you for some reason can't take a mystic in the squad as the only upgrade to 50 points (and another 2 wounds to the count), the Mystic actually creates a 12" deep strike deny range instead of 9" so this unit could sit on a back-field for you and actually create a much larger deny radius than normal and with how much stock there is in cheap objective monkey units with deep strike (or heck, even just strat reserving them for turn 3 onwards) it can be a big annoyance. Sad but not a deal breaker.

80 points for two of those, 170 if you take a callidus with you and boom. Set one up in strat reserve for random flanking later down the line when you need it, set one up in your D-Zone on your homefield objective out of LoS and just have the callidus just do her polymorphine antics over the board whenever needed.

Spice it up for 205 points and give one knight mysterious guardian and have both the Callidus and Knight perform the greatest magic trick of all time.

 

Funny how those henchmen boxes are all sold out current hmm...

 

Current plans are to run my lancer, a gallant, paladin and crusader with a Callidus and an Eversor. Eversor I want to test out. While not able to deep strike, he does scout 9" and his frenzon options are pretty brutal. So while not maybe able to get into back-lines in a puff of smoke, he could possibly make a puff of red mist of fragile flank infiltrators, denying critical mission points and then proceeding to just be an annoyance. Callidus for her disappearing act and maybe vex something...never know...might review her...Vindicare may get some time to shine in knights since Lay Low the Tyrant is such a big deal for us and even just softening the Warlord's kidneys could be fairly annoying for opponents.

[Helycon]

I personally am OK with the changes to towering, as it does require some more mobility in list building. The small points increase on Armigers is fine too and hardly noticeable in an army consisting of units that cost 400 points each. 

 

The bondsman abilities less so. It absolutely neuters it in both power and to me, even worse, flavour. It feels like another experienced Knight teaching his squire how to do a certain action, which is completely missing now. The big Knights themselves are now less powerful, which might be needed due to them being difficult to kill, so I'm sort of OK with that, but wished they had found a more elegant solution here. 

 

The stratagems are also a cut too far. Increasing the costs would have made more sense, so you'd have to be a bit more picky if you wanted to use it in favour of perhaps using tank shock on two Knights (if you had a Lancer). 

 

I reckon Knights will still be at around 50% though, since they're just tough cookies. I'm just a bit sad about the flavour fail that now is the Bondsman abilities.

[sairence]

One thing to note with the Henchmen...none of their abilities work unless an Inquisitor is attached. 

 

So you won't get the bubble or any of that for cheap. It's still the cheapest way to put some wounds in the back.

 

Personally, if I can fit it, I'm going to run Callidus + Eversor.