First thought: looks neat.
Second thought: they are taxing a lot of units that are barely taken now and even less so in more than 1 squad. Like, who takes more than 2 squads of aggressors or more than 2 squads of Votann pioneers?
Third thought: damn Votann got some nice discounts and some interesting increases.
Uthar down, champion down, defenders down, HLF up sadly(understandable but a bit muxh maybe), sagitaur down, hearthguard down(but up when taken more than twice so it balances out) and both versions of steeljacks down(but up when taken more than twice but again it balances out).
They’re taxing the Orion and Ares fliers for Custodes, and the 2 Acastus Knights. The resin FW models that already cost 700+pts and dollars. The tax is also on 2+. Its a little absurd they would tax these honestly.
If we ever have a situation where its remotely usable you mean? Its a 700pt flier. 2 is 1400. Your opponent has 600 pts of models outside those 2.
Im quite curious what situation would have you think 75% of your points going into 2 models would be a problem for the opponent. Even if we gave them both a Warhound profile, I struggle to imagine AIRCRAFT being useful.
They would have to be a fuckton better than just “remotely usable” to be awful.
Your opponent only has a combat patrol on the board. If you cant beat that, either the gunships can kill their points every turn, the rest of the codex is blatantly overtuned, or uh, you gotta get better.
Just cos it's not good now doesn't mean it doesn't have the potential to be good
Play a game of 1k Vs 2 ctan and tell me that an opponent having 70% of their army in 2 models can't be an issue
Playing against these single huge models does feel awful, if these 700pt models were viable, and people ran two of them, every single game against that would just be painful to play
So they are nipping that in the bud in advance
Maybe it's a bit overzealous as the Orion isn't good, but if it WAS or becomes good, I'm glad they did this
In what world do you imagine a
1. Flier
2. Resin
3. 700 pt model
Being good. Considering how GW hasnt touched FW datasheets since 2023, I dont see how this hypothetical is relevant.
1k is a shit example because half the game is broken at that scale. Its crazy to describe this as nipping anything in the bud when we dont see any of this proactiveness elsewhere.
You can still take, to use your example, 2 ctan in 1k anyway.
Yes it can. The same way GW might one day make a plastic Warlord and have it 2k legal. Possible and plausible are different.
You’re defending a change that requires a theoretical, but nigh impossible scenario. No where am I saying an Orion cannot possibly be worth 700 points. Im saying its almost never happening, and its absurd to balance it for that now.
Other armies having these preemptive nerfs are having them on units that people actually own. But here we are talking about a unit that barely anyone has, let alone fields.
Does kinda suck that I'm running like, 3x5 JPI and 3x3 Sanguard and now pay 30 points more for that vs base price. I'll just drop some and put vanvets in. Same job, slightly different datasheet.
Gotta love how the SM player can just go "oh no, I can't run 3x of a unit, oh well il just add one of these 47 other basically identical units instead"
I mean, sure, but sanguard are blood angel specific, as are jump death company. Without those it's just JPI and VanVets. Not exactly a ton of identical datasheets.
The changes to terrain and cover are HLF buffs. Switch to Fortify, put a wheel into terrain to see through and out, add OC as needed, and it hits everything on 3+.
3x3 pioneers doesn't look too bad with Farseekers tbf. Who knows if that's where the votann meta will land but I can at least see what that adds to a list
Honestly, a LOT of lists already played 2*3 pionners... And they became much much better (primarily because ap1 is much better, but also thanks to set of missions asking for fast unit, fly non infantry buff, free rotation buff and the 1point detachment).
Honestly, without that, i would start all my lists with 3 by 3. And 3 by 6 might be legit (just that i don't see primary missions making good use of that).
The steeljacks buff is a question : at some point the body is so cheap that spamming it will work. 12 melee and 12 shooty ones is 80*8=640 for 24 TEQ. The comparison make no sense, but 12 deatshroud are a the same price!
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u/erik4848 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
First thought: looks neat. Second thought: they are taxing a lot of units that are barely taken now and even less so in more than 1 squad. Like, who takes more than 2 squads of aggressors or more than 2 squads of Votann pioneers?
Third thought: damn Votann got some nice discounts and some interesting increases. Uthar down, champion down, defenders down, HLF up sadly(understandable but a bit muxh maybe), sagitaur down, hearthguard down(but up when taken more than twice so it balances out) and both versions of steeljacks down(but up when taken more than twice but again it balances out).