Goatboy’s 40k: GW Draft FAQ – Winners and Losers
Welcome to another week of Goatboy 40k fun. Today I want to talk about the big winners and losers from the updated FAQ.
I was originally going to write about how the changes to competitive 40k has seen it moved towards a much more “everything is broken/good” but with the release of a draft 40k FAQ by GW my gears have obviously shifted. I know I had a quick little blurb of the changes already but today I want to talk about the big winners and losers from the updated FAQ. Of course I know this is a draft and while it has a ton of stuff we are missing the specific Army Book errata/changes/resolutions to fully figure out how GW expects us to play their game. With that in mind – let’s dive into the winners.
Winners
Codex Space Marine continues to keep on being the “favorite” child of the GW company. Almost all of the changes benefited their army with only a few exceptions that while as a whole didn’t hurt them – they instead hurt their “battle brothers”. Will talk about that more later but let’s look at the initial ways they won. First of all – Grav now works against Void Shields. While I feel that the Grav weaponry is pretty dang powerful, this change is another nail in the coffin that was the Void Shield Generator. This also means that Grav will now work against Super Heavy Walker Void shields and other options as well. This gives the Marines more reasons to only bring the Grav and forgo any other weapon option.
The Marines also win again with the updated changes to how Blasts work and interact with multiple levels. This gives the Thunderfire cannon so much more range and power that not including them in any army that lets you might be a crime against your army build. Blasts are now a 3d concept instead of just the weird 2d way we all used to play. Trust me in that there will be a game when you get covered in wounds from massed barrages of blasts.
Another great winner is the Death Watch Tyranid Brood Lord. Its Psychic set up can now actually work with the changes to non profile (i.e. Str, Ap, etc) witchfire attacks don’t actually have to roll to hit anymore. I won’t go into how many times I either missed or had a single broad side pass their leadership to tell you this change makes my evil heart happy. I always didn’t understand how mentally yelling at your enemies model needed to roll to hit.
Another big winner is the Super Heavy Walkers are no longer constrained by the 45 degree arc that normal Walkers are locked into. This means you will start to see a lot more knights shooting out their butts with a rain of bullets, blasts, and heavy chubber rounds. I am all for this as I really enjoy playing my Knights and was very excited to see how much damage my “evil” knights can do with the new Renegade rules. Heck they changed how Stomp works and even allows the Knight to stomp even if all the enemies in combat are dead. They doubled down on allowing them to stomp outside of combat which isn’t really a good thing when a random leg kick removes your Great Unclean One. The added the ability to Look Out Sir to characters on the roll of a 6 which is an ITC add on that I felt was always needed. It does show that GW read other’s FAQs.
Even though this is a nerf, the removal of 1+ FNP is a good thing. To many people would argue about it as it isn’t a save so it is not affected by the always fail on a 1 roll. Or is it since it is a roll. With the added rule of never getting better then a 2+ this saves a lot of random arguments, rules lawyering, and RAW vs RAI.
They also answered on how units that come into play from reserves and then have the ability to leave the table back into reserves works. This is something that was answered on multiple FAQ’s and now we have the direct answer of No. This should help some of the Tau nerfs and maybe we can get some direct answers for them when their Army book FAQ comes out. It would be great to have answers on how the Piranha wing actually works and if they get all their destroyed friends back.
Wobbly model syndrome rule now saves immobilized flyers from eating it into a unit set 18″ in front of them. While it is depressing a bit as I always found that way a goofy way to kill flyers, the lack of any true “dominating” flyer army leaves me kinda sad you can’t kill a Storm Raven that way. Still I suspect with GW pushing Flyers with a release they want to make them not die to something kinda “dumb” as they should just fly over any unit.
Finally we got a rule that specifically states an IC doesn’t gain any extra “rules” from a unit they join. I don’t know how many battle reports I saw with people trying to abuse none BRB USR’s with things that were not meant to join together. Now we can say no to first turn multiple IC charges from massed Formations that were not designed to be added too. While the idea that the game would devolve into crazy Null Deploy/Alpha strike designs would push the competitive edge it is good we finally have a true answer.
I really like the changes to scout and infiltrate. You no longer have to deploy via Infiltration which is a huge boon to some IC’s out there (Cypher can no join with his “friends”). The change of how Scout works with movement happening after a Seize is a huge boon to all scouting armies. You no longer have to throw all caution to the wind and can make decisions before the dreaded 6 flops on the table top.
Losers
Any army that utilized the taxi service the poor Flesh Tearers brought them. The big change of not allowing Battle Brothers to start deployed in other allies vehicles is a huge one. In fact it kills a lot of armies right away as that was how they become so powerful. The biggest loses have to be the War Convocation builds and anyone trying to utilize surprise Culexius assassin to turn off opponents mind powers. The loss of the Assassin is the biggest pain in the butt for me as I feel it was one of the few ways to help curtail some of the Death Star issues plaguing 40k right now.
The weird rule change to grenades is also a big loss right now as I feel it kinda hoses a lot of units that “paid” for the grenade in their profile. How do Orks now deal with super heavies that charge them? The loss of a ton of Meltabombs is a huge thing to deal with. Fire Dragons look a lot worse now since they can only place one bomb on an opponents rampaging Knight? Tau warriors just fold to any big ole Dreadnought/Tank etc that gets to close and they try to shut it down with one puny haywire grenade. This is the rule I expect to change in the “final” form as a lot of people are not happy with it. Of course if that is the way they want to play it that is fine.
They have direct wording on how MC’s/GC’s etc get cover. The removal of toe in means a lot more Wraith Knights are going to get Grav’d to death a lot more. They also directly answered how ML and spell casting works in groups. This was a big FAQ split between Nova/ETC and ITC with ITC looking like the correct “winner” in their interpretation. All of these things hurts Eldar a bit but they are still the strongest “straight” book army. I expect some Errata and rule changes when their book comes out (Warp Spiders will probably only get to jump once and most likely a direct answer on some of the seer council and other things.).
Blood Angels seriously lost as right now there isn’t much reason to bring a CAD/Ally/Detachment due to the changes to Battle Brothers. I know some people will still play them as winning the Best Blood Angel player in the ITC is a cool deal. I just wish they would get a fixed book. Well I wish almost as hard as wishing for a true new and improved Chaos Space Marine book.
Man did Void shields lose out. The changes of only effecting things within 12″ and being effected by Haywire/Grav/Gauss is a real kick in the teeth for a lot of armies “strategies”. I thought the blob of guys 20+ inches outside the comfort zone of the field was a dumb thing so while it is a loss on the building it is a good thing as whole for the game. Also it looks like Psychic Shriek isn’t stopped by the Void Shield. I guess since it isn’t a projectile attack. All those that bought real ones – I am sorry that the hunk of resin cost you so much.
The changes to how you choose what weapons to fire on GC and Super Heavy vehicles is good for cleaning up the phase, but a lot worse when you have single shot weapons. Sure it is better this way as it removes the issue of I blew you up can I target you with my other bits of shooting from the same vehicle/monster? Still there were many a time with one of my Knights I was able to utilize the whole pick a weapon, shoot, and resolve when trying to maximize damage. Most of the time I would choose all my targets but had enough events when opponents didn’t so I just ran with what was commonly used. Now the way I thought it was supposed to be is correct and all is right in the world.
My buddies and I were working on an Enfeeble bomb strategy to mess with Bark Bark Star and other Death Stars. Losing the ability to stack Maledictions is a big loss to this but most likely is right as killing an entire unit full of dogs/guardsmen/etc with a few spells is something that isn’t very fun or exciting. Still it would have messed up those stars something bad as you force them to die to the sickness. It does save me from my Daemons have no saves whatsoever so hey that’s a win.
The idea that Jinking with a vehicle causes the passengers to be effected by the Jink is kinda a stinker. I don’t know what GW has against the Dark Eldar but forcing those poor players to lose the ability to shoot as well out of a Venom/Raider is a pretty pooptastic thing to do. In some ways I can understand as the occupants are shaken as the vehicle does a flip/turn/barrel roll to avoid getting hurt. For sure all those guys spilled their complimentary Bloody Mary’s.
The Biggest Winner
The biggest winner is the gamers themselves right now as it actually is starting to look like GW care a bit about their game. Sure there are problems but listing a FAQ as a draft and asking questions leaves me to think will continue to have more support and benefit greatly from the company caring again. Of course will see if they actual do some stuff to fix the “broken” issues but will have to wait. Right now I am cautiously optimistic as while the FAQ didn’t answer everything I wanted, it wasn’t just information on how they wanted to play the game, there were actual Erratas that show they are starting to actually care about being a game company.
Who do you think got the biggest buff and the biggest nerf?
