GW Grognard: The Pendulum(hatchet) Swings again

Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to to speak of  the dearly departed.

I have seen many codexes come and go over the years. Whether they were from supplements for world wide campaigns, or a brand new race never seen before, there has always been a constant flow of new army books. With every new edition of the game we would, most of the time, get a new army codex that would bring that army into the current edition.  This is actually the first edition that I can remember that all of the armies have their own codex. We are also at the point where we are starting to see armies get a second edition of their codex and see many of the more obscure armies get a mini-dex in the issues of White Dwarf. I even bought a subscription because of it! What we are also starting to see is a re-imagining of some armies and/or  units. in this case I am talking about Ynnari.

For those that have been playing for multiple editions, they have seen this scenario before. An army does really well and maybe doesn’t totally dominate the game but they do affect the enjoyment of the game for many people. It may not be the intent of the rules writers but we all know the examples of the past that many veteran gamers lament about to this day (myself included). What Games workshop would do is correct it by toning down the army so much so that they are really not competitive anymore on almost any level. In the past because of the production cycle of the time, this could takes months, if not years before an army was toned down.When they did, they usually got hit hard with the nerf bat. This seems to be the case with Ynnari. The recent minidex has taken the army to do a 180 in how they are to be played effectively in tournament play. It seems to be more of an assault army, as opposed to the shooting army they are typically seen as. As a result, many players are stuck on where to go next and some are in such a shell shocked state that they immediately put up their  armies for sale as soon as they read the leaked images. I’ll buy all Eldar armies for $50, no questions asked, BTW.

So what is a person to do when Games Workshop cuts your army,  well your playstyle really, off at the knees?  A lot of players just quit. As I mentioned earlier, there are already a number of Ynnari armies for sale. These are usually players that are “chasing the dragon” or just too lazy to try and see if they can make the army work. Now there are players that will at least give it a try and hopefully fins some new secret sauce to keep the army competitive. These players are the true followers of Ynnead. They will look in the different codexes and try out new things and see what sticks. It can be both fun and frustrating, but to be honest more on the frustrating side. This is all part of the healing process of having your faction get neutered.  It’s all [art of the circle of life for the armies of the 40K universe. just ask any long time Chaos, Space Marine, Ork, or just about anyone that had a good codex in previous editions. Eventually it will all come back around. Hopefully you won’t have to wait as long.

That’s all for this week, I hope you enjoyed the read. Let me know your thoughts, and let me know what codex you miss and why it’s the Chaos 3.5 codex, in the comments section. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon pages to stay up to date on what we’re up to and when episodes drop!

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