If anyone hoped GW was going to start balancing 40k... Nope.

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**Selym**

So this morning I got the Deathwatch codex. Largely happy with it. I'm gonna make a fun and fluffy murder-squad. Gak's gon' die, bruh.
But I had a look at the Warlord Traits, and something seems to be going on in the writers' heads.

D6 table:

1 - Warlord can re-roll to-wound and armour-pen against MC's Tanks and SHV's, but not GMC's.

2 - Roll a D6, Warlord and his unit gets that many re-rolls during the battle for any to-hit, to-wound, or armour-pen roll.

3 - All Warlord's weapons get Master Crafted

4 - Warlord gets Night Vision, and can make Night Fighting be in effect on T1

5 - You get to change Mission Tactics (various sorts of re-rolls on to-hit rolls of 1) +1 time during game.

6 - Warlord can call a Lance Strike every turn. Wat.
"At the start of each of your turns, your Warlord can call down a lance strike upon an enemy unit within 12". Roll a dice; on a 3 or more, the unit suffers D3 Strength 6 Ap 4 hits. On a result of a 6, it instead suffers D3 Strength 10 Ap 2 hits. Any wounds inflicted are Randomly Allocated."

Take that as you will.

Spoiler:

**angelofvengeance**

Well they are designed for murdering xenos so doesnt seem too bad IMO.

**Selym**

The point is that 1/6 games, you suddenly get an extra shooting thingy for free.

There is no way to balance 40k if you're going to keep doing this. Note the extra random and dice rolling this thing is rife with.

**Voidwraith**

Random tables aren't killing 40k. An overpowered shooting phase, GW's inability to correctly point cost units, and high volume grav being great against almost everything (especially immobilizing vehicles) is what's killing 40k.

**Selym**

I'm not saying this WT table is going to topple it, but that it is an indicator of what GW still thinks is a good idea - more random, and no attempt to make anything fair.

Plus adding yet more stuff to shooting.

**Pouncey**

Wouldn't it be easier and fluffier to resolve an orbital strike as a Barrage Blast of some sort?

**Selym**

Yep. Apparently that's just too easy.

**Pouncey**

Selym wrote:
Yep. Apparently that's just too easy.

I would love to hear about the physics of an anti-starship weapon being aimed at a planet and managing to target some squad of infantry but only hitting three random guys in random places while everyone else is totally fine.

**A Town Called Malus**

Pouncey wrote:
Selym wrote:
Yep. Apparently that's just too easy.

I would love to hear about the physics of an anti-starship weapon being aimed at a planet and managing to target some squad of infantry but only hitting three random guys in random places while everyone else is totally fine.

I can see that someone isn't forging the narrative hard enough

**Sgt_Smudge**

Pouncey wrote:
Wouldn't it be easier and fluffier to resolve an orbital strike as a Barrage Blast of some sort?

No idea why they didn't just copypaste the Orbital Bombardment rules from the Chapter Master profile as a one-shot S10 AP2 Ordnance Barrage Large Blast.

Why is the Watch Captain's strike only limited to 12"? "Yes, call down an orbital strike here!" "++But sir, that's just a charge distance away from you! Won't you be caught in the blast?++" "NONSENSE! FIRE THE CANNONS!"

**Kanluwen**

Voidwraith wrote:
Random tables aren't killing 40k. An overpowered shooting phase, GW's inability to correctly point cost units, and high volume grav being great against almost everything (especially immobilizing vehicles) is what's killing 40k.

I love how you point to "high volume grav being great against almost everything(especially immobilizing vehicles)" while ignoring that while yeah grav is a big deal, vehicles are trash this edition and grav is only available on certain platforms in its most effective iteration(Grav Cannons with Amps).

**Pouncey**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Pouncey wrote:
Selym wrote:
Yep. Apparently that's just too easy.

I would love to hear about the physics of an anti-starship weapon being aimed at a planet and managing to target some squad of infantry but only hitting three random guys in random places while everyone else is totally fine.

I can see that someone isn't forging the narrative hard enough

I just like it when my fiction makes sense.

**Retrogamer0001**

I see what you mean, but making the orbital strike a blast weapon with bareage at only 12 inches makes the ability near useless and more often than not suicidal - you stand a very good chance of murdering your own Warlord.

Not very logical, but in game terms it makes it playable.

**Pouncey**

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Pouncey wrote:
Wouldn't it be easier and fluffier to resolve an orbital strike as a Barrage Blast of some sort?

No idea why they didn't just copypaste the Orbital Bombardment rules from the Chapter Master profile as a one-shot S10 AP2 Ordnance Barrage Large Blast.

Why is the Watch Captain's strike only limited to 12"? "Yes, call down an orbital strike here!" "++But sir, that's just a charge distance away from you! Won't you be caught in the blast?++" "NONSENSE! FIRE THE CANNONS!"

That kind of thing happens in movies all the time. Character is dying or trapped, decides to let the orbital or air strike take them out too.

But it's not how it's supposed to happen.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Retrogamer0001 wrote:
I see what you mean, but making the orbital strike a blast weapon with bareage at only 12 inches makes the ability near useless and more often than not suicidal - you stand a very good chance of murdering your own Warlord.

Not very logical, but in game terms it makes it playable.

So then increase its range.

Are you marking the location for the orbital strike with a smoke grenade instead of a laser targeter or GPS coordinates?

**Selym**

Pouncey wrote:

Are you marking the location for the orbital strike with a smoke grenade instead of a laser targeter or GPS coordinates?

My Blood Ravens terminator librarian has been using smoke signals ever since Kyras fethed over the chapter.

**HoundsofDemos**

honestly that's not even that good a warlord trait. It'll get used maybe twice per game and a third of the time it does nothing.

**oldzoggy**

Lol this is where you draw the line, slightly better warlord traits compared to regular INQ ones?

This doesn't even come close to the top 20 of things that need to be toned down / fixed in 40k.

**Retrogamer0001**

Increase the range, then you have people complaining about a free orbital strike at 18 inches where the Warlord is safe from CC. It's hard to find the happy medium on this one.

**Pouncey**

Selym wrote:
Pouncey wrote:

Are you marking the location for the orbital strike with a smoke grenade instead of a laser targeter or GPS coordinates?
My Blood Ravens terminator librarian has been using smoke signals ever since Kyras fethed over the chapter.

How's that working for them when it's cloudy?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Increase the range, then you have people complaining about a free orbital strike at 18 inches where the Warlord is safe from CC. It's hard to find the happy medium on this one.

Make it once per game and Ordnance.

**oldzoggy**

Selym wrote:
The point is that 1/6 games, you suddenly get an extra shooting thingy for free.

There is no way to balance 40k if you're going to keep doing this. Note the extra random and dice rolling this thing is rife with.

Most of your opponents will not care about this "extra shooting" thingy. They will be glad you don't field eldar jetbikes, Tau monster parties or SM grav spam.
its a 12" range thingy that only works if your warlord is alive who cares. There are better warlord traits out there.

**Azreal13**

So, in 1/6 games, in 2/3 of the turns there's a 1/6 chance of D3 hits that are actually likely to damage anything that are of any value?

This whole thread might be a tad bit of an overreaction.

**Selym**

oldzoggy wrote:
Lol this is where you draw the line, slightly better warlord traits compared to regular INQ ones?

Selym wrote:
I'm not saying this WT table is going to topple it, but that it is an indicator of what GW still thinks is a good idea - more random, and no attempt to make anything fair.

Plus adding yet more stuff to shooting.

Read the thread please.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pouncey wrote:
Selym wrote:
Pouncey wrote:

Are you marking the location for the orbital strike with a smoke grenade instead of a laser targeter or GPS coordinates?
My Blood Ravens terminator librarian has been using smoke signals ever since Kyras fethed over the chapter.

How's that working for them when it's cloudy?

About as well as attempts to rebuild the chapter's honour.

Still not gotten past the stage of screaming "BRUVAH I AM HIT" AND "BEIHNBLEHD!"

**oldzoggy**

I did read the thread but I also see that you are commanding an craft world eldar army. These warlord traits are not on the same power scale as those.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
This codex could be a lot worse. I haven't seen it in action jet but my first impression is that it (as a stand alone army ) isn't likely to change the list of top 5 tier armies. So yeah I would havve expected this response when they released Wulfen or Eldar jetbikes, or the newest tau shenanigans but not this codex. Deathwatch just seem to be a cool way to field units most players are sneering at for multiple years now.

**Azreal13**

Ok, so the thread title should be "If anyone hoped GW was going to make 40K less random...Nope."

Imbalance and random are not synonymous. Something can be randomly generated but balanced (all possible outcomes are approximately the same) just as much as it can unbalanced (some results are blatantly better than others.)

40K needs more player agency to improve, but random is a hallmark of 6th and 7th, and the DW codex is likely going to remain consistent with that. We can just cross fingers and hope that the rumours of 8th moving things forward rules wise are rumours that mean there's less random in the game overall.

**Selym**

Random makes balance less possible, and giving free bonuses with no drawbacks and no counters makes the game more unbalanced. GW clearly still thinks that good games are made this way.

**oldzoggy**

Wait your objection is that this codex has random Warlord traits just like any other codex ?

**Gamgee**

My players in the rpg used orbital strikes all the time when they had space ship firepower. However most DW actions are covert. Meaning a big honking space ship up there is going to get noticed by an enemy fleet pretty quick and the DW is more stealth orientated with its deployment.

Meaning if its one ship gets caught there is a high chance it will get blown up and the kill team stranded.

**Selym**

oldzoggy wrote:
Wait your objection is that this codex has random Warlord traits just like any other codex ?

No, it's the part where every single trait adds more dice rolling, and that one of them is just free damage on the enemy, that uses a silly and abstract random mechanic that makes no damn sense.

**HoundsofDemos**

Selym wrote:
So this morning I got the Deathwatch codex. Largely happy with it. I'm gonna make a fun and fluffy murder-squad. Gak's gon' die, bruh.
But I had a look at the Warlord Traits, and something seems to be going on in the writers' heads.

D6 table:

1 - Warlord can re-roll to-wound and armour-pen against MC's Tanks and SHV's, but not GMC's.

2 - Roll a D6, Warlord and his unit gets that many re-rolls during the battle for any to-hit, to-wound, or armour-pen roll.

3 - All Warlord's weapons get Master Crafted

4 - Warlord gets Night Vision, and can make Night Fighting be in effect on T1

5 - You get to change Mission Tactics (various sorts of re-rolls on to-hit rolls of 1) +1 time during game.

6 - Warlord can call a Lance Strike every turn. Wat.
"At the start of each of your turns, your Warlord can call down a lance strike upon an enemy unit within 12". Roll a dice; on a 3 or more, the unit suffers D3 Strength 6 Ap 4 hits. On a result of a 6, it instead suffers D3 Strength 10 Ap 2 hits. Any wounds inflicted are Randomly Allocated."

This table isn't even that amazing.
1. Is very situational and only helps the warlord.
2. is a solid trait
3. meh
4. garbage
5. is pretty good.
6. trash in application. You'll fire this off 2, maybe three turns at the most, a third of the time it does nothing.

Compared to the standard marine chart DW didn't get a great table.

**oldzoggy**

Selym wrote:
oldzoggy wrote:
Wait your objection is that this codex has random Warlord traits just like any other codex ?
No, it's the part where every single trait adds more dice rolling, and that one of them is just free damage on the enemy, that uses a silly and abstract random mechanic that makes no damn sense.

K I officially lost you.

Lets compare this with lets say the anti Xenos inquisitor warlord table. Since this might be would the closest thing to compare it with

1- Unquestionable Wisdom: The Warlord and his unit can choose to pass or fail any Morale Test.
2- Reader of the Tarot: While the Warlord is alive, you can roll two dice and choose the more favorable result when rolling for Reserves, Outflank, Mysterious Terrain, and Mysterious Objectives.
3- Burner of Worlds: Once per game, orbital bombardment (infinite range, S10 AP1, Ordnance 1, Large Blast, Barrage, and Orbital).
4- Xeno Hunter: The Warlord and his unit have Preferred Enemy (Xenos)
5-Xenotech Collector: The Warlord gains a 6++, and one of the Warlord's ranged weapons gains S+1 and Rending
6-Purity of Mankind: hatred

Extra die rolls on 2,4,5 and 6
Free weapon on 3

DW table:
Extra die rolls on 1,2,3,5
Free weapon on 6

I honestly don't see how this is all that different from the new DW warlord table.