Hello folks, Dolch here!
Today I’m going to lay out why I think that simple points changes are not enough to make everyone happy.
I’m going to use examples from the Necron Codex, but that doesn’t mean that the crux of my argument doesn’t apply to all the other armies in the game. Neither am I saying that rules writers at Games Workshop don’t have the will or the tools to do the job properly; instead, I’m saying that it will take time and consistent effort (oh, and a few more revised codexes).
(Note. I’m not a playtester, and I don’t have an early copy of Chapter Approved 2019. At the time of writing, I’ve only seen the Warhammer Community teaser article. This article stems from a series of theoretical discussions I have had over the last few months with a part of my local gaming group who are game designers and developers (both digital and cardboard). Thank you, Reece, for letting me put this out there!)
So, why am I using Necrons? First, it is an army that I own and love. It was my first army for Warhammer 40k, and I’m more than familiar with their rules, history, and weaknesses. Also, Necrons have been doing well on the ITC Tournament scene this year. At the same time, many Necron players have been very vocal about the difficulties of the army. I’m not out to prove anyone wrong here, I’m just using this army as a basis for conversation.
Points changes cannot fix disappointing or rules. Theoretically, you can improve a unit by decreasing the cost. All sorts of things can be improved when you drop the cost per wound or point of damage. Once you go beyond theory however, there are some real hard limits that you run into. Sometimes units are poorly conceptualized, and no amount of points drops will make it do what it is supposed to do. Another example of a hard limit is when further points changes push a unit into a niche that is doesn’t belong.
For the Necrons, Gauss is disappointing. Gauss, as an army rule, used to be terrifying to opponent vehicles. Before the time of ‘everything wounds on a 6’, Gauss actually allowed Necrons to wound everything on a 6! (Er, cause glancing hits… but I won’t dig into the minutiae of long gone rulesets.) A squad of Necron Warriors was terrifying when it would only take 1-2 of them to disable a vehicle. (To give you an idea of what Gauss and the Vehicle Rules were like in 5th edition, imagine if a wound roll of a 6 allowed Gauss Weapons to deal D6 Mortal wounds to vehicles.)
Why is this a problem today? Because the Necron Army was built around the power of old-school Gauss. They don’t have Heavy Weapons options in their infantry squads because Gauss served that role. Tesla weapons are a welcome addition, but they are hardly an anti-armor choice. So today, Necrons can’t get anti-vehicle from their Infantry units, and so you don’t see Gauss-equipped infantry units on the board. Dropping points alone isn’t going to change that equation.
Reanimation Protocols is also a disappointing rule, but for different reasons. Target priority is very simple when playing against Necron Infantry lists… if you start shooting at a unit, you don’t stop until it is dead. This is because Reanimation Protocols will return between 1/3 and 1/2 of the models to the unit each turn, UNLESS the unit is completely wiped out. A unit with 1 warrior left is as dangerous as a unit of 5.
Why is this disappointing? Two reasons:
#1. It leads to uninteresting play decisions for the opponent. The answer is always going to be “Kill the last warrior in that unit.” What if I only have lascannons left to shoot? I guess that warrior is going to eat some lascannon fire, regardless if there is a different option to shoot those lascannons at.
#2. Reanimation Protocols is a rule that rarely gets used against a wise opponent. With the relatively high rate of fire in most armies, even a full-sized 20 warrior unit will be easy to clear off the board. It is tough when your army-wide rule can be completely negated by the actions of your opponent.
Necron have seen points decreases in the past, but I think that Necron Warriors have dropped as low as they are likely too. I don’t think that the rules writers at Games Workshop are interested in having a full Silver Tide army. Reanimation Protocols (in whatever form that takes) is just too good to have THAT many warriors on the table. Here is an example where point drops have reached a theoretical limit.
For Necrons, Flayed Ones are a disappointing unit. They get some good rules (native deep-striking… rerolling failed wound rolls), but like many other dedicated close-combat units, Flayed Ones really struggle to get into combat. Games Workshop has corrected these issues with some recent books (the ability to ignore overwatch, reroll charge rolls, even some Tyranids getting effectively 4+ feel-no-pain against Overwatch when charging). Necrons also don’t have any forward-support characters that go well with Flayed Ones. Necrons also don’t have any Stratagems that go so support this unit either.
There are so many things that Flayed Ones would need in order to be an effective close-combat unit. Flayed Ones are an example of a unit where the rules (or lack of rules) are preventing it from filling the role it is supposed to. Even if Flayed Ones were less expensive than Warriors, I don’t think they would get used as anything other than a deep striking objective holder.
So if dropping the points on a unit isn’t possible, or doesn’t do enough to make that unit ‘good’, what will?
New rules, either in the form of a new datasheet, new stratagems, or army beta rules.
Between books like Vigilus Defiant and Vigilus Ablaze, Psychic Awakening and box sets like Shadowspear many, many units are getting additional rules. White Dwarf has served as an emergency fix, introducing rules like Bolter Drill for Marines. Of course, book FAQ and the BIG FAQ are also sources of new rules.
However, Games Workshop has been clear… Chapter Approved is for points adjustments (and awesome Narrative updates), not for rules changes.
Hopefully, now that the whole cycle of Codexes has come out (along with a second edition of the Space Marines and a revised version of the Chaos Space Marines) we will get a chance to see more re-worked codexes. Ultimately, this is the only hope for some of these units.
How wrong am I? Let me know in the comments below!
What units and rules do you think cannot be fixed with points adjustments?
Until next time,
Best Blitzes,
Dolch
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
100% agree. Points can help fine tune a unit, but it can not make it do its job better.
This is the Internet?!?! You aren’t supposed to agree with me!
But seriously, thank you. What units do you see that won’t perform their intended job at any point level?
Well, you go down enough in points and any unit becomes good, great even.
Reecius,
There gets to be a point where dropping the points doesn’t actually improve the unit. Let’s take it to an absurd level; imagine an army of 20 knights on a standard table.
You can’t fit that many in the deployment zone. The ones that you do fit, can’t effectively move due to the congestion. You are so closely packed together that your opponent can tag a knight and stay safe from shooting (due to you being unable to leave combat since there isn’t anywhere to move that knight.
But more importantly… that won’t be a fun game.
Maybe I’ll ask this question… given the current state of the game, how many points would make Flayed Ones an effective combat unit? Hormagaunts are 5 points… would Flayed Ones be an effective combat squad at that point level?
Notice, I’m not talking about what else you could buy for the cost savings… that is a different thing altogether.
I do think that is the Crux of the issue for units like Flayed Ones. Even Kill Team drop their points for 17 to 10! They are still meh at that point.
Without rules to back them up they can not function. With a 5″ move you have to deep strick them to make them work then your opponent uses CP to blow more then half of them off the board in your turn then you have the joy of rolling 9 on 2d6… All for 3 0AP S4 1D per model at 17 points(for now)
If a unit is crap and cheap BUT is a Troop then it has a place in the game giving the other thing Necrons are starved for CP.
I think the level where a Railgun Hammerhead is worth its points is the level where it’s not a main battle tank anymore.
For sure,
I collect Death Guard and though they do have some effective units, they are incredibly hindered as a solo army by their released rules (or maybe even moreso the rules they lack) to be competitive.
Another problem is that GW doesn’t do big enough pts drops for things that need them.
-20 pts off a Monolith. Wowee.
-10 pts off a Burning chariot. Careful GW.
-50 pts off a Stompa. Jesus, you just broke the game GW
Like why are these drops so conservative. My only explanation is that in PA they will get insane stratagems. Like 1CP 3++ on Stompa or 1CP to deepstrike the entire army next to a monolith and give them all 3++ for the turn. Obviously these won’t happen so why are the changes so miniscule on units that will never see competitive play.
This should be the only anticipated points change this year. Any future changes will be in the missions (they are in CA2019 – if you don’t use them, it’s not GWs fault) or the coming PA 4-6.
Wade, then Studio Boss, said in March 2018 that points changes weren’t the best answer to the then GSC/7 hive tyrant builds or Aeldari. He said missions needed to change first. Then we got the ‘Brotheres rule, rule of three and the rest of the “Dark imperium” Codexes and miniatures.
Not every army will be competitive at the same time – SM waited two years to get to where they are. Books take time to write/print/transport. The team has doubled to four – YES only four rules writers. They only write rules for new models, then other models get balanced.
Now some Tau generals can win GWGT2019, Nova 2019 and SoCal 2019. All had different builds, a bit of luck to avoid “harder” builds, lucky dice and a lot of skill.
Still waiting for my crisis suits to get the rules they need. As it stands a single commander is almost always better and cheaper than a unit of crisis suits.
I also get the feeling that the final psychic awakening book will be the one with necrons and tau in it (the only races with no psykers) but then mysteriously never go to print because you can’t have a book with no imperial units in it.
T’au is the 5th book. 4th is GK, DA and tsons
What point drops?
Aberrant unit went up 60 points after GW saw GSC getting blasted off the table by no-change-Riptides at NOVA, lol.
Odds are good that CA was already at the printers when the GW team was scanning the tables at NOVA.
CA will always be 2-3 meta shifts behind.
Unless GW moves to digital distribution…
GW were at NOVA; CA2019 points were confirmed with the play-testers after that.
Which again begs the question why GSC got hit super hard and Tau mostly got cheaper.
Both armies were pretty good pre-GSC, but Tau (and Chaos) were still a tier up from GSC in win percentages and all the other stats, not to mention straight-up big tournament wins.
I could see a main combat asset for GSC like the Aberrant unit going up 50-60 points if the main combat asset for armies like Tau (Riptide?) or Chaos (Discolords? Deredeos?) also went up 50-60 points, or even just 30 points.
But one armies main asset going up over 25% while the other contenders are all untouched is inexplicable to me.
Yup you nailed it.
With GW ignoring lore about Guass but sticking to it hard in the units like Triarch ones not having any dynasty so no Codex rule fun for them allowed is very confusing.
HQ units with only 3 attacks so they are only really for buffing and have 3″ inch range on those, they are a mess and truly a Tax not a cool choice to be taken or be proud of on the table.
So here is hoping for that rework. There are soooo many unique weapon and technological wonders in the Necrons background to use and make the army play differently. I am surprised GW has not tried out of boredom if nothing else to make them unique on the table top.
For now there are plenty of ways to improve your hobby skills and you can get new folks into the game having them crush your grey tide with Space Marines. Be the good guy at your store up for fun games that are not so try hard.
3 attacks and 3″ auras you say?
Let me give you a deal. Pay 3 times the cost, get +2 attacks, you get +3″ on your aura but the aura is pretty much useless, you get + 10 wounds and can be targetable and degrade really badly and give up easy kingslayer and can’t hide. But you get 2 psychic casts!
Sounds like a great deal, come to the chaos daemons and play with greaters!
Like I said… I’m using an army that I’m most familiar with to make these points. There are similar units in every codex. (You should hear my ‘Nid buddy).
Oh I’m well aware. I tabled an all monster list on turn 2 with the current classic necron list.
Agreed there is nothing Greater about them. They don’t strick fear or even a little worry they are just an easy pick up and points.
It is kind of like DnD at high levels; Hit Points don’t mean anything. If you want you Boss to even get one round before dying they must have a way to stop the PCs from attacking the way they want. At high levels 300+ damage a round per PC is an easy thing for them.
The same is for 40k high level is 1500+ point armies. They have the fire power to chew through the biggest units with relative ease. Playing wounds vs damage game does not work it is unique rules that give large models their place in the game.
I’m still a little sick after moving from the 5th ed (Ward) codex into the 6th.
We lost so much fun and interesting bits of wargear, the whole Harbinger business…
I hope that Necrons do get revisited with an eye towards making the army more interesting.
As for Resurrection Protocols, I played vs. Necrons at Warhammer World’s War Without End 1000 points tourney, and that rule is terrifying (with 4’x4′ tables and possibly as short as 90 Minute rounds (though WHW played 120), something in that vein struck me as being much more like the e-sport, streaming-friendly format of competitive 40K people are looking for too . … also 5-6 round GTs on a single Saturday would be possible).
Even at the Warhammer World GT-style giant games of 1750, it’s still reasonable.
2000 points just doesn’t do them any favour.
Great article! Enjoyed reading it.
I feel they need to stop decreasing points for a lot of things. I feel like we’ve ‘bottomed out’ so to speak for many units. They need to improve datasheets instead of just dropping points.
I’ll use the fresh example of Howling Banshees and Kroot. They shouldn’t be getting cheaper, they should be getting better. Banshees should get more attacks not cheaper, they’re elite shock assault warriors. Kroot should get their second attack and stealth back not get cheaper, they’re skilled trackers not cultist-level chaff hordes.
On the other hand there are tanks and monsters that still need to get cheaper.
I feel they should change the current format. Due to the time it takes to get things published, printed, shipped, stocked, etc. the points changes in Chapter Approved are usually months behind the meta, that clearly isn’t a good thing.
I propose making points a purely online thing so they’re available as soon as they’re finalised instead of months later.
Chapter Approved can instead be the book for updated datasheets between full codices. The time between codices is far too long, it’s unreasonable to have to wait years for a unit with a bad datasheet to be improved.
‘But that’s what supplements like Psychic Awakening are for’ I hear you say. And I retort: Tell that to Howling Banshees. Tell that to the Tyranid units that are getting stratagems instead of datasheets because apparently they should be paying CP for rules the units should have built-in.
I totally agree with you, Anguul. I think that a digital distribution system is the future in our hobby.
Rather than individual books, you purchase a monthly or yearly subscription to the app. It has an army builder, rule books, and army rules right in the app. Any FAQ or errata get integrated right into the text.
Personally, I’d rather avoid the microtransaction trend that is rampant across videogames, however. I’m not sure how much say I have (other than with my wallet).
This is actually one of the better and most important articles I’ve read on FLG in a while. The trend of GW being unable to make/keep units good and compensating by tossing them onto the K-Mart clearance rack leads to an unsatisfying to me as a player and a painter.
I actually think a heap of codexes need to updated at this point for that reason.
Look at the Eldar codex, Striking Scorpions are now only one more point than guardians (!). Why? It’s because they’re bad units that don’t do anything, and definitely not anything like their fluff. They’re “value” units now, yeah. But they still don’t kill anything like their fluff says they do – and perhaps more importantly Shining Spears dropped -4 points at the same time.
Space Marines are becoming exponentially/brokenly more deadly while units like these feel like their role is being there for space marines to kill in droves.
Well, at that point, I believe GW push very very hard to replace the old fluff of “Space Marines are gods in propaganda and merely elite infantry in reality” by “Space Marines are gods period”. The fact the balancing act for Space Marines is -1 AP +1 something else army-wide, and the balancing act for the other is to put their elite to the cost of conscript certainly go in that direction.
If the people that insisted that the space marine were actual gods were a bit less nasty, I guess I would be a bit less afraid of that. The thing is, in addition to be all kind of bad on the balance level, it’s also all kind of bad in term of community :/
Good article and I completely agree. There are a lot of units that can’t be fixed with point changes because their basic design is fundamentally flawed.
To use yet another example from the Necron book, the Destroyer Lord is clearly designed as a melee unit . . . yet it’s aura only works on two units – both of which are entirely ranged and don’t want to be anywhere near melee. Lowering the Destroyer Lord’s points is not going to make it less awkward to use.
It’s a similar story with the Dark Eldar Archon. Archons aren’t garbage because of their cost. Archons are garbage because they have:
– Abysmal melee.
– Abysmal shooting outside of a single option that’s index-only (and even then it doesn’t even come close to making Archons tolerable).
– Crap defence.
– Zero mobility options.
– An aura that can only affect a tiny fraction of their army.
– An aura that – in a subfaction built around open-topped transports – doesn’t work inside, into, or out of open-topped transports (and do remember that open-topped transports are literally the only mobility option available not just to the Archon but to the entirety of the Kabal subfaction).
– An aura that doesn’t work on the unit that is purpose-built to accompany the Archon.
etc.
Put simply, a 15pt drop does nothing to make the Archon any more appealing because he’s still a complete waste of space. Doubly so if you need to take more than one of the buggers (since the first can at least have a relic and warlord trait, but the second can never have a warlord trait and no one is going to waste CP giving an extra relic to these worthless sods).
The other issue is that by putting point changes into a written book, GW need to have it written months in advance so that they have time to print it. This inevitably means that the point changes are going to be months behind the meta – and so many of the units hit with price hikes are ones that have already been displaced by new releases.
It would make far more sense to implement point changes via online FAQs.
Eldar characters in general just suck at combat and I don’t get why.
Succubi are meant to be able to defeat Chapter Masters in single combat, but that’s probably never going to happen unless they’re Red Grief with the Bloodglaive and get very lucky.
There’s this bizarre refusal by GW to give eldar characters good weapons. Even Guard and Sisters of Battle have access to more powerful weapon relics than an Autarch, Archon, or even a *Phoenix Lord*.
Indeed. And its not even limited to Relics – A Blessed Blade outclasses any of the standard weapons available to Harlequins.
There seems to be a particular aversion to giving DE models high-strength weapons. Imperial Guard characters can freely take Power Fists, yet the most DE characters are allowed outside of Relics is +2S (and, even with a measly D1, that was still considered so powerful that it required a -1 to hit penalty).
To take the example of the Huskblade, it used to be a low-strength weapon that ignored armour saves entirely, ignored FNP, and outright killed any model wounded by it. Plus you could combine it with Soul Trap to double the Archon’s strength if he killed a character or monster.
Now the Huskblade is S4 but can only ignore guardsman armour, can’t ignore FNP at all, and far from killing models outright it’s damage is pathetic. Plus, even if you do kill a character, Soul Trap provides a much more meagre boost and requires CPs every time you want to use it.
In essence, the Huskblade used to be high-risk, high-reward. Now it’s high-risk, no-reward.
Also, it baffles me when people praise the Agoniser. It’s a weapon with poor AP, D1 and which needs a 4+ to wound non-vehicles and a 6+ to wound vehicles. It’s a melee weapon that’s barely better than the poison shooting DE already get in spades. This, I remind you, on a supposed glass-cannon model that relies on being able to kill opponents before they can strike back. In what world is this a good weapon? Especially when compared to stuff like Power Fists, Thunder Hammers etc. which wound most infantry on 2s (and most vehicles on 3s or 4s), have better AP, have *at least* d3 damage, and which are available on far tankier HQs (many of which are even significantly faster than anything available to DE).
If GW want Eldar to not have high-strength weapons, fine. But give us something to replace them. Give us weapons that do Mortal Wounds, give us weapons that wound non-vehicles on 2s or 3s without having to sacrifice every other worthwhile characteristic. Give us weapons that make opposing models hit themselves. Give us weapons that wound against Ld.
But *please* just stop giving us garbage weapons with 0 redeeming features and calling it a day.
In the ideal world GW would actually be able to keep their game within boundaries, but the latest SM releases prove it isn’t happening. When my opponent is re-rolling failed hits and wounds on multiple units due to overlapping character buffs, they’re playing a different game then me. I can’t match that math – i call it Bull Sht and a killer for an enjoyable game unless I decide to buy-in on a new army, and that just isn’t happening for me.
Land Raiders are one of my go-to example Units for this sort of thing. The fact that one of them can be completely shut down by a handful of Grots/Culties/Conscripts poking it with sticks or whatever is a problem that no amount of Points change is ever going to fix.
Landraiders are old! Newer models allow you fire some weapons within 1″ (eg – Invictor Tactical Warsuit with its HMG).
Tactically you screen them.
Do you have any idea how much stuff it takes to decently screen something the size of a Land Raider? Especially given that they’re supposed to be what protects other things, not something that needs twice its points in screens to maintain basic functionality.
I disagree. Being able to tag a vehicle and take it out for a turn, or being able to force vehicles to move so they take a hit-penalty for their shooting, etc.. are all the things that should be far, far more prevalent in the game (and more severe in their impact on unit efficiency).
Things without such game-play weaknesses such as Repulsors or Caladius, etc.. that you cannot tag, don’t suffer for moving, aren’t bothered by terrain, possibly don’t even degrade, etc.. take all “the game” out of the game, leaving just “the math” of whether you can dice it off the table or not.
IMO we need more stuff that has clear game-play weaknesses (or more weaknesses and less abilities to ignore weaknesses) for existing stuff that just remove any and all skill and game-play to the point where you’re just playing Yahtzee with always-100%-efficiency-under-all-circumstance-game-pieces.
I think this is what is really going on here. 8th simplified the game to the point we’re different models act exactly the same. There seems to be no real rule difference between Infantry and Vehicles. They way they shoot is the same, they way they move is the same, their armor is treated the same (really a mistake) and their Toughness is just not a good metric for them, with some CP normal troop weapons wound on a 4+.
When all units act the same on the table the only way they can change their performance is to change points which is a detriment to the game as a whole.
This, absolutely. There’s nothing less fun than playing against a gunline with rerolls. At that point, it’s just a spreadsheet with models instead of numbers.
What I find most egregious about the new Space Marines isn’t necessarily how powerful they are, but that their rules are so *dull*. Artisans is the worst trait for this – oh, look, Repulsors with -1 AP, ignore penalties to move, ignore intervening models, ignore Fall Back, reroll to hit, reroll to wound, ignore randomness on the damage roll. How inspiring.
I don’t think it should just ignore getting locked in combat, and I don’t think all Vehicles should have an exception like that. But Land Raiders are supposed to be able to fill a number of roles, and it’s way too easy to shut down all of them at once.
Doesn’t even have to be inherent. I’d be down with something like a Stratagem that let it move through Infantry/Swarms/Bikers that started the phase within 1″, fire at those Units, and then allow passengers to disembark afterward. Let it genuinely be an Assault Tank/Transport.
GW just feels so… un-agile with these updates. And it’s a serious problem.
Heavily Disagree
The new Rules for the Chaos Legions show how even Word Bearers suddenly become interesting.
CA2019 give you the points.
The new Campaign gives you the rules. Wait for your book and your time to come.
The whining damages one of the greatest games out there.
My 2 cents.