Metawatch - Examining the Pariah Nexus

[chapter master 454]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/06/06/warhammer-40000-metawatch-examining-the-pariah-nexus-missions/?utm_source=CUSTOMERS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WH_6th_June_Metawatch_&utm_content=&utm_term=

 

This is very interesting and thought it warranted a post here.

Notable things they talk about:

OC0 units can no longer do actions

Titanic Characters can now do actions and still shoot

Actions are now more defined and now CANNOT be done if you advanced OR are in engagement range of enemy models (so assault and pistol weapons lose some value there, good change imo)

Deployment maps are getting made easier to set up with as they put it only one diagonal map retained

Chilling Rain mission rule removed (this was the "no mission rule" one)

Mission Rules tend to benefit Battleline units by giving them certain buffs, examples are being able to advance and do actions or be in engagement range and do action.

 

Also, with this release they are bringing forward the summer Dataslate balance AND MFM (munitorium field manual) update to align with this release. Quite a lot coming and quite quickly, personally looking forward to it.

[Osteoclast]

Hopefully the battle mat with deployment zones on it that I got will still be generally useful for that purpose. 

[TrawlingCleaner]

Admech are getting a "significant" rework too as mentioned in the video

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

They want to incentivise taking battleline units as thats supposed to be the core of they army, its like they didnt understand what was going to happen when they removed force org/detachments

[Blurf]

2 hours ago, Mechanicus Tech-Support said:

They want to incentivise taking battleline units as thats supposed to be the core of they army, its like they didnt understand what was going to happen when they removed force org/detachments

Force orgs just meant you had 3 sad minimum sized naked units of battleline holding the points. It still didn't make them 'the core of the army'. It just made factions that had extremely cheap battleline options better.

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, Osteoclast said:

Hopefully the battle mat with deployment zones on it that I got will still be generally useful for that purpose. 

 

Should be mostly useful, will probably need to figure out something for the new deployment zones.  Can just ignore the diagonal one lol

[Petitioner's City]

2 hours ago, Blurf said:

Force orgs just meant you had 3 sad minimum sized naked units of battleline holding the points. It still didn't make them 'the core of the army'. It just made factions that had extremely cheap battleline options better.

 

A percentile system would be really good - like 25% of the army total points needs to be battleline (or even 50%). It would lead to different armies for sure.

[Doobles57]

17 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

 

A percentile system would be really good - like 25% of the army total points needs to be battleline (or even 50%). It would lead to different armies for sure.

Fantasy/TOW uses a similar system. It's still considered a tax and people seem to try and hit that percentage as closely as possible. 

 

Battle line/troops need to be better frankly. I much prefer seeing an army with plenty of troops, but there should be an incentive to do so beyond you have to.

[Firedrake Cordova]

5 minutes ago, Doobles57 said:

Fantasy/TOW uses a similar system. It's still considered a tax and people seem to try and hit that percentage as closely as possible. 

I guess it depends on the player ... back when the Force Org charts were a thing, my Space Marines were getting on for 50% Troops by (full-sized) unit count (and my WHFB armies are all quite core-heavy) .  

[StrangerOrders]

28 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

I guess it depends on the player ... back when the Force Org charts were a thing, my Space Marines were getting on for 50% Troops by (full-sized) unit count (and my WHFB armies are all quite core-heavy) .  

I wonder how much of the problem is culture?

 

40k has turned viciously competitive and even newer casual players tend to be taught to go immediately for trying to break the game. I remember this one guy that bragged about not owning battleline and finding the concept silly.

 

Meanwhile, my brain still goes 'hmm... a marine force should logically be mostly compiled of assets from a battle company'.

 

The flipside though is that it is making me feel really old whenever I see a newer player getting into 30k and marveling at the concept of an org chart lol.

[chapter master 454]

The issue with Troops/Battleline/Core units is that often they are meant to be the "rank and file" of the army which are by design not meant to be very high end however this leads to the question of why take them within the confines of games like how 40k is played normally.

If you were to play 40k like some rolling campaign over a vast map, where units being moved from one location to the next was an actual issue then having units like this could be helpful as they are low cost but don't let the opponent run over the location with zero effort. Kind of why Fortifications don't really work in 40k. These sorts of things are meant for a grander narrative and a game system that I think frankly would be galatically unwieldy without the use of some sort of computer running admin work on a ton of things.

 

The focus thus in 40k I feel for battleline that got missed by mile was making sure they are high synergy units. You can see that a bunch of leader models in various armies can often have the option of the rank and file as a unit they lead.

Problem is...they tend not to benefit more from such things. They in fact benefit less very often as not having a high output by default. Leaders are unit multipliers and why multiple a small number when you can multiple a big one? The fact is that battleline isn't being used to grant better boons. Could be a genuine change for say space marine captains, that if they are leading a battleline unit, they may use their free stratagem on ANY kind of stratagem, or you remove their limit of using that ability once per battle round. Yea, intercessors aren't mean but when you can constantly put up armour of contempt on them for no cost, they suddenly start becoming a bit tougher to shift.

 

As mentioned, these units are seen often as Tax when forced upon players and even then, the only ones we see are ether: A) Cheap as dirt and will sit on an objective and/or B) Have Objective Secured so can sticky an objective then walk off and do...something...I don't know...

Not an easy issue to address though because it requires balancing various aspects of the game and as it stands, there are a lot of units that could do with tweaks already...its a mess to be frank.

 

 

Oh and yes...apparently the AdMech are finally getting a Codex...kind of weird to launch as part of the new season but hey, whatever moves books am I right?

[01RTB01]

6 hours ago, Petitioner's City said:

 

A percentile system would be really good - like 25% of the army total points needs to be battleline (or even 50%). It would lead to different armies for sure.

This would be a return to 2nd edition :)

 

The problem is that anything they come up with can be broken. However at the minute, you see super 'wonky' armies. There is almost too much  flexibility now.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Remember in 5th where only troops could score objectives and 6th where only troops could score and contest? And it was end game scoring, so they had to stick around until then? 

 

The compulsory troops/battleline felt like they were more necessary in that style than in the version where every unit can score or contest, you can score victory points that can't be lost every turn, and you dont always need to be on an objective to score (either through secondaries or sticky abilities). 

 

But hey, unrestricting every interaction and mechanic has only lead to a better game, right?

Edited June 7 by SkimaskMohawk

[Bonzi]

I would point out there are (or were) 10th edition armies that did lean on their Battleline units.  Necron players even at the tournament level made use of Immortals and Cryptek buffing characters.  As a reward for having a good Battleline unit with character synergy, Immortals and Crypteks caught a points increase.  It's hard to listen to GW bemoan how nobody takes Battleline when they make sure to nerf good Battleline.

[Malakithe]

Green Tide about to reign supreme with more buffs to battleline.

 

Good night sweet Biovore. Good morning Raveners!

[tzeentch9]

Genestealer cult are going to be buffed loads by the battleline bonuses, plus their new book

[Rogue]

Yeah,but GSC had that at the start of 10th too, with Neophytes as our strongest unit, right up until we were handed nerfs, point increases, and a wider change to stratgems that really hit the battleline-heavy list.

 

As Bonzi said, strong battleline builds get nerfed just as quickly as everything else, which doesn't encourage you to invest in them.

[Dark Shepherd]

I love the change to oc0 units and actions

 

Id go one further and make them not count towards board control for VP

[Muck1ng]

Just a warning, there is going to be a real stock shortage of this mission deck.  my LGS only got 5 copies.