Chapter Tactics is a 40k podcast which focuses on promoting better tactical play and situational awareness across all variations of the game. Today the guys talk about the new spring FAQ’s impact on tournaments, go over Geoff’s tournament win and, go over the tournament coverage for this weekend.
Show Notes:
- Head on over to 40kstats.com for more faction stats for all major ITC tournaments!
- Support us on Patreon, this month and get a chance to win Abaddon and a Lord Discordant.
- Click here for a link for information on downloading best coast pairings app where you can find lists for most of the events I mention.
- Check out the last episode of Chapter Tactics here. Or, click here for a link to a full archive of all of our episodes.
- Commercial music by Music by: www.bensound.com
- Intro by: Justin Mahar
I don’t get why Ynnari had to be eradicated so brutally.
Sure they needed some toning down, but all other FAQ nerfs seem fairly considerate and well thought-out, while the savaging of Ynnari is just an unrestrained f you to anyone who ever bought or painted the triumvirate boxed set.
Their mechanics were fundamentally broken in a game based on action economy. Period.
Really? What action economy? That’d imply that armies with fewer units get more actions to match armies with more units. That would fit.
And double-activations are plentiful and fine. From Grinding Advance and Move! Move! Move!, Endless Cacophony to Singleminded Annihilation, Honour the Chapter and Hive Commander, Warptime to Hysterical Frenzy and Blood for the Blood God. Etc….
If extra-activations in themselves were fundamentally broken, they’d have to remove all of them.
Again, not saying Ynnari didn’t need a change, but most armies in 40K work just fine with all kinds of extra activations. Saying they are “fundamentally” broken seems like a stretch, given how many there are.
And even if you wanna change Ynnari and not make them about double activation, you could still make em playable.
Every single one of those examples you listed (except for Grinding Advance, which is likely factored into the Leman Russ cost) required CPs which are a limited resource. Ynnari got to do them for free by doing something they need to do to win a mission (kill a unit) or cast a fairly easy psychic power with a +1 to cast psyker.
Some of the new strategems seem pretty wonky/useless (the Incubi one is pretty dumb) and they may have been nerfed too hard but their core mechanic had to be changed.
Nah. Plenty don’t work on CP. Hive Commander. Warptime, Move! Move! Move!, Quicken, the new Slaaneshi double-fight, nu-Sisters. Moment Shackle. Blood for the Blood God, just to name a few examples.
There’s more different ways to get extra activations in the game than there are different Codexes.
Soulburst was arguably weaker than most, as you could play against it, pulling models, etc.. which doesn’t work for many others.
Nobody cried about Drukhari or Harlequins soulbursting either.
The problem was the stacking of Eldar buffs, which they removed nicely from the game (and should never have been applicable to Ynnari either, and of course aren’t now).
Hive Commander, Warp Time, and Move! Move! Move! are indeed powerful movement actions. Two of them were only once per turn (a special ability from Swarm Lord and a psychic power) and the others were orders to T3 5+ A1 Rapid Fire 24″ Str 3 shooting models.
The Slaneesh double fighting demon prince is one model.
Moment Shackle is once per game on a Custodes HQ (single model). Blood for the Blood God is a 3CP strategem.
None of these are Dark Reapers getting to shoot twice with a psychic power, none of these are Shining Spears flying 40″+ and getting to charge without a CP investment.
I don’t see the difference to “fundamentally” broken “because” action economy for Ynnari, but none of those. (Blood for the Blood God is just an inbuilt thing Berzerkers do, without even needing stuff to die and without being limited to one unit per turn).
Soul burst is just as limited to once a turn per action, is much easier played against and could’ve also been turned into strats or some variant of the Sisters faith mechanic or a Hive Commander-like ability on the Yncarne or whatever.
But that’s not even the point. Don’t want Ynnari to be the double-activation and pass that schtick to Chaos with all the warp-timing and double-fighting, fine.
It just feels odd throwing my beautifully painted Yncarne into the dustbin (where it’ll admittedly rest next to other cool stuff like Thunderwolves or my FW Avatar of Khaine), when GW’s clearly capable of more nuanced adjustements as clearly demonstrated by the FAQ.
Ynnari were, by a mile, the most winning army in the game. The numbers show that they were over powered without a doubt. They needed to be toned down. If you think this was too much or not enough is up to you of course, but the numbers don’t lie: Ynnari were too good.
Nah, they weren’t.
CRAFTWORLD Ynnari were the most winning army (and even there it was just 2-3 units really that were problematic). Drukhari and Harlequins Ynnari didn’t even reach mid tier.
Which is why the issue was with the Craftworld part (and taking away access to Doom, Jinx, Fortune, Protect, Guide, Quicken, etc.. was long overdue and welcome).
If the soulburst was part of the problem, they’d all show up equally in the stats.
Which is the difference between a sensible “rebalancing” and a stupid one.
Nerfing the Castellan focusses on the problem. Nerfing all Knights to Toughness 4 because the Castellan was out of line would’ve been stupid.
The Ynnari nerf just did the equivalent of that; a broad, mindless collateral instead of focussing on the problematic interaction they could’ve solved.
Eh, you’re splitting hairs. It was the core mechanic that was flawed. The fact that it applied differently to different units isn’t reason enough to say: Some Ynnari can act twice, some Ynnair can’t! That would have been a silly solution.
And, quite obviously, the game designers didn’t think the core Ynnari mechanic had a place in the game. It got nerfed what, 3 times? Then just removed. I tend to agree. The multiple actions out of phase was just dumb, it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t good for the game. I’m happy for the change, personally. YMMV but I am not sad to see it go in the slightest.
I’m confused. What ynari nerfs were there aside from making it so craftworld/asuryani boosts can only affect other craftworld/asuryani units?
The core Ynnari mechanics change in the WD.
The change to Ynarri was / has been received extremely well. Even as it was coming down the pipe virtually everyone was in agreement that double shooting reapers needed to go away…
It’s fine that you don’t like it and are upset by it but when you make sweeping claims talking about how “bad” of a change it was and how Ynarri aren’t a problem or that they weren’t the top tier army etc it just looks plain silly. Like, we are all playing in an imaginary land but you are so deep in it MOST people can’t follow.. something to perhaps self-reflect on.
I am gonna venture a guess though that self reflection isn’t your forte.
I can just repeat what I said before.
I fully agree that a change was needed and that Ynnari was too good.
But I would’ve love to have seen a change that didn’t mean beautiful miniatures like the Yncarne just end up in the trash can. If I am in the minority, so be it.
Changing the Castellan by 100 points is a reasonable nerf. It still has a place in 40K, even if it might not win big GTs anymore.
Changing the Castellan by 1000 points would be dumb and bad for the game.
I am not sure what’s controversial about still wanting to play with beautiful miniatures like the Yncarne or Yvraine. I am not even asking for them to be more than, say, Grey Knights level of “competitiveness”. Simply playable would be nice. It’s a pricy box (more than the Castellan I think) and it just leaves a bad taste to have it basically be squatted.
Hell, I literally started my post saying Ynnari need a nerf.
I am gonna venture a guess that even basic kindergarden-levels of reading comprehension aren’t your forte.
Uh, oh, we got an internet badass on our hands here. Everybody make way.
To be fair he is correct about his original post, excluding the vitriol. It always amazes me AP, when you a snarky, unforgiving, sarcastic, hyperbole loving poster, replies in the same manner as the original poster to indicate they are incorrect in some way for posting a defensive or sarcastic comment.
Why does that amaze you? I think it’s actually a mental illness. I’m dead serious.
Hey bud, I think it’s safe to say. That you’re in the minority with that opinion.
Hey guys, great podcast.
Just a quick correction: Mike and I finished our game in just over 2 hours, it ended naturally on turn 5 (we were using rulebook rules for seeing if a game continues to turn 6, rather than straight ITC), and as it ended on 5 Mike was able to get the win, deservedly so.
Thanks for the correction! Congrats on the stellar performance.
Hey guys, great podcast.
A quick correction: Mike and I finished our game in just over 2 hours, no slow play and had plenty of time left. We were using rulebook rules for seeing whether it went to turn 5 and Mike rolled a 1 so the game ended and he took the win, deservedly so.
Hey Konrad, Love the comment
A quick correction: This podcast like your game was recorded in an alternative dimensional realm and I am a plansewalker of sorts that sometimes gets confused with which existence I am communicating into so I apologize for not speaking clearly about the game that was played in this existence.
Lol Geoff’s retelling of his recent tournament experience was hilarious.
The FAQ was both substantial and positive for the game.
Some factions still need more substantial alterations but those will come with a new codex. Neither the FAQ nor Chapter Approved has really changed the way armies play beyond toning down the most egregious combinations of rules or units (Not counting the new Ynnari mini-dex in WD). If this FAQ funnels more forces into the category of winning 45%-55% of games then it’s succeeded. I don’t think that the existing lists that win the overwhelming majority of games will continue to do so.
I have a prediction that Knights will be deminished significantly and that Castellans will remain popular as the model is widely in circulation but it won’t be involved in any more major tournament winning lists. It’s swung a bit to the point where destroying it is a likely outcome for the right list in the initial turn, and that’s too much of a gamble. You can’t base a winning strategy over having to go first in every game to neutralise key threats or be destroyed. Imo the 4++ cap to the Ion shield was all that it needed, but at least using one won’t lead to accusations of power gaming anymore ?
I also think that my streak of losing to Dark Eldar and friends might come to an end now that the most OTT powerful things about Eldar soup have been eliminated. This was a great change it’s so much more thematic.
Orks and Tau might actually be the biggest winners of this. Both armies are exceptional without relying on soup combinations, both are high performers, and both are now relatively better off.
Losing the Loota bomb is quite the blow for Orks but I found it wasn’t ultra reliable over the course of a 5+ round event, anyway.
I think the best Ork players aren’t going to be bothered at all, and Ynarri wind riders not being a thing anymore really helps those lists out. Considering this year’s LVO results.
I still hold hold by my prediction that Tau are the biggest winners of this FAQ.
As a primary knight player, I always felt like the average tournament Tau list had a big problem with dealing with a 3++ save Castellan (big surprise) and was outclassed by Ynarri lists.
We will have to see where Chaos goes as a faction, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year from now the community is going to be calling for Tau and Chaos nerfs.
T’au player here. I don’t see how anything actually changed for them this faq aside from making kauyon units unable to move. The wording on the volley fire clarification is misleading, since pulse rifles aren’t given an extra shot past half range anyway.
Kauyon units were always unable to move, the FAQ just made it so you can pick which units were affected rather than automatically immobilizing everything around the Commander.
Dakkath, that’s the point. They were already putting up good numbers in the past month or so, and only benefit from top dogs like Castellans and Ynnarri falling off the mountain.
As long as Tau players can adapt to beating Chaos lists, they have a real shot at being the top dog.
Tau actually really like facing the Castellan. 600pts and kills 3-6 shield drones.
Penalties to hit are what Tau don’t like, and Eldar and Chaos both have those in abundance.
I just want Geoff to know that I used the Dagger of Tu’sakh to outflank a unit of 6 Hive Guard, and I hope that keeps him up at night.
YOU
MONSTER
@iNcontroL
Hey Geoff. Tell me more about chapter tactics on Vehicles. I picked up on some very subtle hinting on your part. Is this something GW is potentially addressing or looking into?
I think it makes little sense that Guard tanks have regimental rules, same with things like Eldar flyers and tanks, yet Astartes tanks that are literally piloted by Astartes do not…
Colour me highly curious!
Chaos is terrible, not competitive and definitely don’t need nerfs. Look the other way.
Wink! =P
Reason for few Castellan’s in Australia, $280 for one 😛
Warden is $185 or Errant $155 by comparison
That’s the price of independence 😛
One positive view point on the 4++ max for knights is that castallans are now more cp efficient since you aren’t saving/spending 3 cp for rotate ion shields anymore (assuming you took the WL trait).
Hold up a sec. I’m considered an easier draw than Brandon Grant? I’ll have you know Ray was ecstatic to have dodged me. ECSTATIC!
Good game Geoff. Trajan / Valdor charging out of that building, covered in cultist bits, to one-shot Abaddon will haunt my dreams for years to come. But those are the kind of scenes we play for.
Hey guys anybody know if the new mob up faq kills on the 20 meganobz list, im not a huge ork player but i really wanted to get in them after seeing the meganobz list. any idea how much the change affected the list?