Can you believe it’s been almost a month since my last 40k narrative review! Crazy! Today we are looking at the “I can’t believe it’s not Squats” army the Leagues of Votann (LoV).
Army Specific Rules:
It’s interesting to note that the LoV have a rule allowing Imperium players to take their units (up to 25%) in a roster but not the other way around. Your bitter stunties also get a special rule: when they take a battle scar, they gain a grudge against the faction of the unit that killed them. At the start of each battle, when facing an army a unit of yours has a grudge against, you roll a dice for each grudging unit on your side. For each roll a “6” you can give a grudge token to one enemy unit. For every roll of a “1” you lose a command point. Units from your army can re-roll to hit rolls of a “1” when targeting a unit with 1-2 grudge tokens or all hit rolls when targeting a unit with 3+ tokens. If a grudging unit kills 3+ units in a game then it loses its grudge.
In addition to this you are also trying to gather resources as you go through the campaign. You randomly gain 1 of four different resources at the end of the battle. The amount you gain depends on the mission size and you can also gain “Rare Resources” on a roll of a “6”. You then use these resources to buy upgrades which grant you some neat abilities from free requisitions to the ability to purchase battle honors for units (thankfully these are capped at 1 per unit per campaign). Be warned that hoarding resources can be a trap as there is a chance after each loss that you could lose access to part of one resource.
Agendas and Relics:
The LoV only get access to 4 agendas. No Waste gives you experience points for killing enemy units with Judgement Tokens though units that survive the battle with these tokens deduct from your exp. Priority Acquisition is your standard “Place a new objective and perform an action to remove it” agenda. Fortunately, you get to place this one and it grants a rare resource and exp if recovered. Ancestral Revelation requires you to do an action in your deployment zone, the mid-table and your opponent’s deployment zone but grants a hefty bonus of 6 exp if you pull off all three. You also get exp if you do it twice or even once! To Settle a Grudge grants you experience for grudging units when they kill enemy units (whom they hold a grudge against) and +1 if they kill them in melee. Also, if you settle a grudge then that unit gets an extra 3 exp.
The LoV get a lot of crusade relics to pick from, which also meshes well with their army ability to buy them using resources. Their artificer relics are kinda broken. One option is a 3-shot beam weapon. While only S5 and AP -1 it can still be useful if your opponent is careless. You also get a relic that grants +2 wounds. Finally, you get an absurd 6-shot AP-3 bolter that ignores invulns on units that have a Judgement token (this should be a Antiquity relic IMHO, this is so oppressive). There are three Antiquity relics. The Recyc Converter turns units you kill into resources though it caps at 60. Ythur’s Vengeance gives the model a perma-grudge against all other crusade armies that can never be settled as well as re-roll wounds vs orks and making enemy units lose -1 on their Out of Action rolls. Yikes that is good. The last relic is a mini-vortex grenade that does D3 MW for each Judgement Token the enemy unit has (once per game). The Legendary Relic is okay. It’s a one use per game item granting LoV units within 6″ +1 attack and giving a judgement token to all enemies within 18″. If it weren’t so easy already to hand out these tokens it would be better.
Army Traits and Requisitions:
The LoV get four army-trait tables. A full one for non-vehicle units and mini tables for Hearthguard, Pioneer and Iron-Master units. Most of the mini tables are mundane though the Pioneer units get the ability to Move-Shoot-Move once per battle. The full table is very useful with units getting the ability to fire at units with 1 judgement counter and count it as 3. Get the ability to purchase free requisitions (like the ability to get a Grudge for 1 RP). Or even get more resources after the battle. This is actually one of the best tables at integrating the existing faction crusade mechanics I have seen, I just wished it was a little less powerful.
Lastly, the LoV get six requisitions to choose from. One we mentioned already (get a Grudge for 1 RP) I think this should be only available after a loss, or when the unit is added to the roster, not “At Any Time”. Guild Patronage is also really good granting +5 exp to any unit after it levels up for the cost of 50 resources. All for the cost of 1 RP, oh and you also get to use the Repair and Recuperate requisition for free (this is so dumb, this should be 2-3 RP or one use per unit). Rare Acquisition grants you the chance to get more Rare Resources for 1 RP. You have your standard “Purchase to grant character abilities” requisition, in this case it is for the Votannic Council. Imperial Mercenaries is fun, it allows you to make your LoV units receive the “Agent of the Imperium” keyword for 1 battle. Lastly you can sacrifice a character with a battle scar to gain some resources and +1 exp for all other units in your roster. This should also be 2RP minimum.
Conclusion:
This army is frustrating as the mechanics are fluffy but a little too over-tuned. Many of the LoV upgrades are equivalent to 2 battle honors for other factions. Their army mechanics allow them to max out their roster fairly early and can make them a nightmare in early campaigns. I have no idea why not a single one of their requisitions cost more than 1 RP. While they are still limited by their movement the LoV are going to just decimate certain armies in a campaign if the GM isn’t careful. At the same time this is a book with a really well-thought out set pf rules that interweaves the army abilities into it’s rules in all aspects (Agendas, Relics, Battle Traits, etc.).
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