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Running ymyr for +4 range
So which is better, bolters or ion blasters?

I went with Bolters.

Less strength matters not with autowounds, and better range means more likely to get bonus AP from Ymyr.

When I build my own come January/February i'm going to build 2/3 squads with the ion blasters.

Why? Well, it has nothing to do with the stats. It has everything to do with having already spent decades shooting things with various types of bolters. Oooh, another version of a bolter. How exciting.
The ion Blasters though are something NEW. And unique to this fashion.
So they'll be my default.

I'll build squad #3 with the bolters just for variety. But I don't anticipate using that 3rd squad all that often. There's just too many other things in the force I plan on using.

I see a lot of faith in judgment tokens but maybe I’m misunderstanding them. They seem to depend on one character passing out one or two a turn and your units dying.
Seems like if you’re doing well or lose that character then they’ll be few and far between.
What am i missing?

Generation of tokens is not a problem. And the VoL have "chapters" that make specific ones better.
As weapon choices goes. If there is an option, always magnetize every weapon option. Or cry next edition when you have to change weapons on already painted models.

I guess you can min-max, but as I see it both guns are so similar its unclear there's a massive swing.

Boring paper view. Even with Judgement tokens for auto-wounds, the Bolters are better into T3 targets - and the Blasters are better into 2 wound T4 models like Marines.

I think competitively we are seeing more bolters - typically with a medipack+pan spectral scanner. Sometimes with special weapons if Thurian to get those rerolls. I think because just about every other Votann unit is sort of anti-MEQ (or higher), some anti-softer targets fire brings more utility to the list.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
I see a lot of faith in judgment tokens but maybe I’m misunderstanding them. They seem to depend on one character passing out one or two a turn and your units dying.
Seems like if you’re doing well or lose that character then they’ll be few and far between.
What am i missing?

Judgement Tokens get handed out for enemies just playing the game. Getting them for holding objectives/doing actions means a lot of enemy units end up with them each turn and they're often the priority targets as they'll be on objectives. They also never go away, so once a unit has one they'll always have it. It's not uncommon for over half the enemy army to have JTs by turn 3, especially when you consider the action monkeys and objective holders are often not the ones doing the damage.

If you go GTL, and have two kahls, you should have no problem having 3 tokens per turn just from the Kahls, counting as twice that amount. Add in another token for an enemy taking an objective or doing an action. I bet an average game, if you can keep those kahls alive, will have 4 enemy units all with 2 tokens each (counting as 3) by the end of turn 2.

For my armies I tend to just overbuy basic troops (as they are usually good value in elite armies in terms of models per pound/dollar and often you get more of them from the "collecting" boxes) and make an equal amount of each option.

It gives you flexibility for both competitive and casual play, a good core of models to get your paint scheme sorted and so far I've not regretted this philosophy.

Personally in my lists I've gone with Ion lately. Maybe two squads with Ion and one with bolters. I've found that Ion has been incredibly powerful, and even with the low range, they still get to fire most turns and the extra punch is so good.

On a hobby point, I modeled all of my dudes with Ions because I think they look awesome. They're space dwarfs! They should have a proper scifi gun to reflect that. On top of that if you run all of the same type in a list, most people won't be able to know the difference between what a bolter and Ion looks like. The gun differences are pretty subtle, much like the different Primaris bolters which I still can't tell the difference between. If I face my buddy and my dwarfs are all holding Ions, but I only have bolters in my list, he won't care. I'm lucky to play with relaxed people and most tournaments I've played at don't care either as long as it is clear in your list and not confusing for your opponents. Just ask your TO. Even if you're forced to bring the Ions, they're still good.