Goatboy’s 40K Deep Thoughts – What’s Too Good Right Now?
Goatboy here on another Monday morning and today I want to dip my hooves in the current units that appear to be too good.
I see these units/rules as the top items you need to keep in mind if you want any hope of placing in a tournament – or at least at the tough end of the tables at your local store. You should be aware of these units. It just isn’t that fun to get a surprise punch to the naughty bits when you are trolling for a game.
Grey Knights still have Teeth
To start things off – let’s go with an old good unit. The tried and true Psycannon. I know they are not always facing off at the top tables but we all know that damned thing is a little bit too good. The strength is right at the fun zone of hurting most things plus it gets the added benefit of rending. I still think it should have only been 2/3 with either Salvo or some other rule to prevent some of its offensive shenanigans. Lucky for us it is usually on the body of a Marine and killing a Marine is one of the easier things to do in 40k right now. Still it is an extremely powerful bit of wargear and one of the first bits of this might be too good for 40k options out there.
The Ray-gun
Next we go onto the other boogie man of 5th/6th edition – the Telsa rule for Necron weapons. I have gone on before about how this rule seems to give too much benefit to snap fire. I have also had too many games where I did more damage in the overwatch phase instead of my actual shooting phase. The ramp up ability of the gun mixed with its “luck” based conditions makes for a weapon that can frustrate a lot of players. I don’t mind the 6’s I just get annoyed with how many of the gun platforms have that lovely key word Twin Linked mixed in. I guess they just didn’t want the Triach Stalker in more lists. I think if they dropped Twin Linked out of the bigger versions it would still be good but just not frustratingly good.
Croissants
This leads into the other thing I find too good right now in 40k – the Night Scythe. I know GW likes to sell kits so I understand the desire to make a flying transport option. It just makes sense for a company the enjoys the player buying more then 3 of a kit. Still if the option was limited to just say 3 it would make for a better game. It has warped a lot of tournaments as well as armies as you always need to plan for facing 3+ of them when seeing robots across the table top.
The Chaos Chicken
6th changed a lot of things and added a new unit to the game. Flyers are here to stay and I do think the current crop of them coming out are not over powered like the next “too good to not take” option. The Heldrake is one of the few stars from a somewhat lackluster codex. You can win with Chaos Space Marines but if you don’t have any of those flying all-stars in your list then prepare to lose a few games. I wish the Autocannon was cheaper as it would make for a better choice in some match ups. I still like to take one if I ever take 3 (got rid of one dragon so that is less likely hah). Still the unit packs a lot of punch. It also has one of the toughest armor values for a flyer as well as mixed with the ability to never have to Jink. The CSM book is pretty low on the power totem pole so I don’t want to do any changes to the Dragon. If it wasn’t as good as it was then we would be back to what we saw before in 5th edition with CSM sitting on the shelf.
Daemons own Psychic Powers
The Current Daemon book is right in the middle of the power pack. I think the biggest strength of the book is how it can easily over power in the psychic phase with either spamming high Toughness threats or controlling the board with Telepathy. If you don’t see any Strength 10 on the field it might be worth wile to add some Telepathy options on your Daemon Princes. When those DP’s don’t fall down it becomes a very difficult game. You mix this with constantly evolving games and you have options that are very hard to judge as an opponent.
Khorne-Dogs Go Through You Fast
The Dog Bomb list is still an extremely efficient army as well. It does a number on a lot of static lists and can be a threat to the faster/low shooting count eldar lists as well. Battlefocus doesn’t help when the dogs are threatening the bottom of turn 1. I don’t know if it was smart to allow for such a fast army in 6th Edition but it is finally a true assault list. I don’t think assault is dead, it just needs to play smarter and this list does a lot of things right. *** Side Note*** I am planning on a new Daemon army paint style that I should be starting in the next few weeks. Look for discussions and Daemon builds on my blog as well as some hobby related stuff on BOLS later.
It’s Like Playing Missile Command
Finally we get to the Tau. Right now the biggest culprit in the too good meta of 40k is the Broadsides. I know they wanted them to be the beasts of the shooting phase but I feel they all shoot a bit too much. It is like – if they didn’t have Twin Linked they would be a lot easier to deal with. It is interesting in that removing the Twin Linked part would fix a lot of options in the game. Mitigating the role of a miss is something smart players strive for. We all know the amount of dice you roll during a game is no where near where it needs to be to create the true average. Adding in Twin Linked removes those dips that should occur when playing a game of rolling the bones. It is one of the things I find annoying as I feel it comes to easy to certain armies and not easy enough to others. I know Tau’s theme is – Bullets half off! – but still there comes a time when your job of just rolling saves is not that interesting of a game.
Too Soon for the Pointy Ears
Eldar have not been out enough for me to fully digest their “effectiveness”. I think they are good and will reward the better player so that is always a bonus for its design. I like the book and while I don’t plan on buying any it is still something fun to think about and tinker with points. It is interesting in that they are great versus certain armies and will struggle against others. It gives me hope that when the other books roll out will see a very balanced 6th edition with tournaments and games coming down to the better player instead of just the better book.
What are you top units/rules you thing are most overpowered right now in 40k?
