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There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the state some factions have released in either because they appear to be too good or because GW seems to left a faction without the tools needed to compete. Now that we have the points it's time to call your shot. Which stuff will prove to be broken and which stuff will be woefully underpowered?

For my money, Nurgle in general and DG, in particular, feel like they got shafted, though it might be possible that DG with an allied Chaos Knight ends up with enough firepower to make use of their toughness.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the state some factions have released in either because they appear to be too good or because GW seems to left a faction without the tools needed to compete. Now that we have the points it's time to call your shot. Which stuff will prove to be broken and which stuff will be woefully underpowered?

For my money, Nurgle in general and DG, in particular, feel like they got shafted, though it might be possible that DG with an allied Chaos Knight ends up with enough firepower to make use of their toughness.

Well it's also going to depend on how the Meta shakes out - Do Aeldari go heavy Wraith? Heavy Aspect? Support Weapons? Aeldari and Space Marines feel like they're in a good place, mono-god Daemons and Sisters feels like they're in for a long 6+ months.

Breton wrote:
Well it's also going to depend on how the Meta shakes out - Do Aeldari go heavy Wraith? Heavy Aspect? Support Weapons? Aeldari and Space Marines feel like they're in a good place, mono-god Daemons and Sisters feels like they're in for a long 6+ months.

I think SoB will end up just fine even if they do end up leaning heavily on allies for their early-game heavy hitters until miracle dice come online.

If I'm wrong, I'll eat crow.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Breton wrote:
Well it's also going to depend on how the Meta shakes out - Do Aeldari go heavy Wraith? Heavy Aspect? Support Weapons? Aeldari and Space Marines feel like they're in a good place, mono-god Daemons and Sisters feels like they're in for a long 6+ months.

I think SoB will end up just fine even if they do end up leaning heavily on allies for their early-game heavy hitters until miracle dice come online.

If I'm wrong, I'll eat crow.

If they have to lean on allies they're not doing well.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Breton wrote:
Well it's also going to depend on how the Meta shakes out - Do Aeldari go heavy Wraith? Heavy Aspect? Support Weapons? Aeldari and Space Marines feel like they're in a good place, mono-god Daemons and Sisters feels like they're in for a long 6+ months.

I think SoB will end up just fine even if they do end up leaning heavily on allies for their early-game heavy hitters until miracle dice come online.

If I'm wrong, I'll eat crow.

Barbecue or Deep Fried?

A unit of Sisters of Battle Retributors is 130pts. A unit of Space Marine Devastators is 120pts. They are nearly identical units except the Devastators have Space marine statlines and a better selection of weapons.

Sisters of Battle Retributors are one of the better units in the index for sisters.

Space Marine Devastators aren't really worth talking about for space marines.

Eradicators are better than both units and are 95pts.

Dominions have regular single shot melta guns but are 130pts because Scout is apparently worth 40 points. Desolation Squads are 10pts cheaper.

Sacresants are 130pts despite Being T3, Sv3, and doing less than 1 wound per turn to a marine on average.

Repentia are 30pts more expensive than Desolators. A unit of Desolators will kill the entire unit in one round from anywhere on the table.

I will stick with what I have been saying since the previews. Eldar and space marines will be top shelf, death guard and adeptus mechanicus will be bottom shelf.

Breton wrote:
If they have to lean on allies they're not doing well.

I don't agree, allies are there to be used, so use them if they make your army better.

Breton wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Breton wrote:
Well it's also going to depend on how the Meta shakes out - Do Aeldari go heavy Wraith? Heavy Aspect? Support Weapons? Aeldari and Space Marines feel like they're in a good place, mono-god Daemons and Sisters feels like they're in for a long 6+ months.

I think SoB will end up just fine even if they do end up leaning heavily on allies for their early-game heavy hitters until miracle dice come online.

If I'm wrong, I'll eat crow.

If they have to lean on allies they're not doing well.

The first two lines of a Sisters of Battle List are 'Vindicare Assasin' and 'Knight Preceptor'

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Breton wrote:
If they have to lean on allies they're not doing well.

I don't agree, allies are there to be used, so use them if they make your army better.

Why bother playing your army at that point? Just buy the best Soup list you can.

Lammia wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Breton wrote:
If they have to lean on allies they're not doing well.

I don't agree, allies are there to be used, so use them if they make your army better.

Why bother playing your army at that point? Just buy the best Soup list you can.

Or just play Knights.

I'm one box of Armigers away from being able to pivot but A. I don't want to build them and B. I don't want to give GW any money.

Lammia wrote:
Why bother playing your army at that point? Just buy the best Soup list you can.

Even with as many allies as you can take SoB will still be half of the list. You can also play pure if you want but you might be leaving power on the table.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Lammia wrote:
Why bother playing your army at that point? Just buy the best Soup list you can.

Even with as many allies as you can take SoB will still be half of the list. You can also play pure if you want but you might be leaving power on the table.

You're leaving power on the table playing SoB.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Lammia wrote:
Why bother playing your army at that point? Just buy the best Soup list you can.

Even with as many allies as you can take SoB will still be half of the list. You can also play pure if you want but you might be leaving power on the table.

Bit what does that half do that another army doesn't do better, earlier or with less assassainable support?

Lammia wrote:
]Bit what does that half do that another army doesn't do better, earlier or with less assassainable support?

Miracle dice. Cheap units to do objectives. Exorcists. Triumph. Possibly holding Retributors in Immolators in reserve to come on for late game clean-up duty.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Breton wrote:
If they have to lean on allies they're not doing well.

I don't agree, allies are there to be used, so use them if they make your army better.

Sisters who lean on allies do pretty well means the allies did pretty well, not the sisters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:


The first two lines of a Sisters of Battle List are 'Vindicare Assasin' and 'Knight Preceptor'

I don't know I might go 3x Armiger Warglaive for 3 small knights over the one big one, so you have three thermal lances for Anti-tank.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Lammia wrote:
]Bit what does that half do that another army doesn't do better, earlier or with less assassainable support?

Miracle dice. Cheap units to do objectives. Exorcists. Triumph. Possibly holding Retributors in Immolators in reserve to come on for late game clean-up duty.

Ok, my point is being missed a bit.

So lets get specific with DG. How is leaning on 'I'm tough to kill and can make it work in the later rounds' competing with 'I kill you first turn, I kill you second turn, I kill you third turn...'

And DG have basic units that can overcome one of their 'weaknesses'.

Lammia wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Lammia wrote:
]Bit what does that half do that another army doesn't do better, earlier or with less assassainable support?

Miracle dice. Cheap units to do objectives. Exorcists. Triumph. Possibly holding Retributors in Immolators in reserve to come on for late game clean-up duty.

Ok, my point is being missed a bit.

So lets get specific with DG. How is leaning on 'I'm tough to kill and can make it work in the later rounds' competing with 'I kill you first turn, I kill you second turn, I kill you third turn...'

And DG have basic units that can overcome one of their 'weaknesses'.

I'd say that pure DG is looking worse than pure Sisters because they don't have the same access to cheap units that Sisters do. Cheap objective takers that die into miracle dice that fuel late-game presses are going to be how skilled tournament players get the most out of their army.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Lammia wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Lammia wrote:
]Bit what does that half do that another army doesn't do better, earlier or with less assassainable support?

Miracle dice. Cheap units to do objectives. Exorcists. Triumph. Possibly holding Retributors in Immolators in reserve to come on for late game clean-up duty.

Ok, my point is being missed a bit.

So lets get specific with DG. How is leaning on 'I'm tough to kill and can make it work in the later rounds' competing with 'I kill you first turn, I kill you second turn, I kill you third turn...'

And DG have basic units that can overcome one of their 'weaknesses'.

I'd say that pure DG is looking worse than pure Sisters because they don't have the same access to cheap units that Sisters do. Cheap objective takers that die into miracle dice that fuel late-game presses are going to be how skilled tournament players get the most out of their army.

We can debate that, that's not an issue.

The issue is 'load bearing' allies doesn't make an army good. They're great as a way of getting something that might be helpful (d3 for example) but you shouldn't really be starting with them.

Lammia wrote:
The issue is 'load bearing' allies doesn't make an army good. They're great as a way of getting something that might be helpful (d3 for example) but you shouldn't really be starting with them.

I disagree. If an SoB army uses allies better than any other faction that could use those same allies it makes them good. Period. It sucks if you don't have those models or have an emotional attachment to running pure Sisters, but if they use allies well and win games because of it they are objectively good. If skilled players can do well with them and win multiple tournaments with them but joe average can't the army is still good.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Lammia wrote:
The issue is 'load bearing' allies doesn't make an army good. They're great as a way of getting something that might be helpful (d3 for example) but you shouldn't really be starting with them.

I disagree. If an SoB army uses allies better than any other faction that could use those same allies it makes them good. Period. It sucks if you don't have those models or have an emotional attachment to running pure Sisters, but if they use allies well and win games because of it they are objectively good. If skilled players can do well with them and win multiple tournaments with them but joe average can't the army is still good.

1stly, what makes an army good is a path to a 45% WR. Something DG and SoB lack.

2ndly, Every Imperial player took a Knight Castellan in 8th ed because they were good. Not because they made other armies work better overall.

Marines appear to have some pre-nerf Squats level of undercosted units and I think that will become clear in the edition's first games. It kind of skews comparisons, because I'm not sure anything is as good as 120 point Desolators. Or 120 point Devastators. Or 95 point Eradicators etc.

I don't therefore think SoB are that bad - but yes, they are clearly worse off than Marines (but so is everyone else).

I think Eldar have the best army/detachment rules which should make for a very effective army when applied to the most points efficient stuff. Not dug into it to work out what that might be.

DG look bad because they are just too slow. There was an outside chance if the Daemon Engines had been mega cheap - but that doesn't appear to be the case. PBC 175. MBH 115, Bloat-Drone 135 (....!?).

I think Ad Mech look the worst though. Or at least they seem the most nerfed - but with only limited points reductions on certain units. I don't see how the Skorpius for instance is anywhere close to 195 points compared with Marine tanks.

I think GSC is going to be a sleeper hit like last edition, where their true power only comes out with a player who's good at misdirecting the opponent and playing chicken with the ambush tokens.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:
I think GSC is going to be a sleeper hit like last edition, where their true power only comes out with a player who's good at misdirecting the opponent and playing chicken with the ambush tokens.

Just how they like it

Right now, IG with the ability to take 9 inexpensive tanks with Indirect Fire seems like the start of an efficient build.

Someone REALLY has to dislike DG as a faction or the players that play the faction. It is one thing to have high cost good rules, it is another to have bad rules, but cheap units. But getting a bad set of rules on top of being made super expensive, that is something special.

On the winners side, eldar once again make it, with both getting powerful rules and undercosted units. I wonder if a 1500pts eldar army could beat up a 2000pts DG army in 10th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sarigar wrote:
Right now, IG with the ability to take 9 inexpensive tanks with Indirect Fire seems like the start of an efficient build.

On the fun side of things, this means that starting a GSC army also starts with taking some cheap Indirect Fire IG tanks too.

I don't know about power level but I'll certainly nominate DE as being the biggest losers in terms of being able to field an army that's even remotely fun or interesting.

Three generic HQs, all melee beatsticks, no ranged options, no melee options, all three stuck with weapons that are decent against infantry but worthless against anything else. Naturally, the one who's supposed to specialise in combat is by far the worst of the three (not that that's saying much).

Two of them are only able to join a single unit, while the Archon has a choice of two units he can join. The game seems to want him to join a Court which then joins a Kablite unit... except that the result doesn't fit in any transport. And Kabalites can't innately combat-squad, so the only way to make it work is to buy a Raider and a Venom, as the Venom has the magical power to split squads. Then you can have the Archon+Court+5 Kabalites in the Raider and the other 5 Kabalites in the Venom.

And then, once you've finished this mess, you can just throw the list in the bin anyway when you remember that the Archon still does nothing while in a transport.

Also, Eldar can casually resurrect Wraithlords but the Haemonculus, the masters of science who specialise in regeneration, can't even restore a single Wrack. And of course, the ability to take Hexrifles, Liquifiers et al. is long gone. Because heaven forbid a DE HQ be allowed to take anything remotely fun.


Maybe DE will be strong for a bit by spamming cheap Ravagers, but GW has efficiently wringed the very last droplets of fun and flavour from them.

On individual rules fly lost quite a bit. From one of best rules to being more of detrimen'.

tneva82 wrote:
On individual rules fly lost quite a bit. From one of best rules to being more of detrimen'.

It is not that bad. My entire army flies now. It is funny, where there is some odd interaction with the fly rule and a sm flyer is overwatching in to your dudes at +1 to hit.

Winners:

Little Timmy who can’t stomach basic addition.

Losers:

People who like proper list customisation or people with suboptimal wargear on their models now that everything is free…

Karol wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
On individual rules fly lost quite a bit. From one of best rules to being more of detrimen'.

It is not that bad. My entire army flies now.

It does not. Your units with deep strike gain fly until the end of the movement phase in a turn when that unit advances.

And unfortunately, it does very little for you beyond grabbing objectives and positioning. The army has no assault weapons.
There is 1 strat that lets you advance and shoot, and the Nemesis Babycarrier can natively advance and shoot/charge. That's it.

It makes a good chunk of the army fast if you want it, but it also turns off shooting and charging for all but a tiny fraction of the army. It also has little synergy with the army rule, where you're just teleporting units willy-nilly.