Goatboy’s 40k: Can Roboute Be Relevant?
Goatboy here to pull out my crystal ball to see if Guilliman can survive in modern 40K.
Goatboy here again and today I am pulling out my crystal ball to see if the reborn Primarch has any hope to be decent in the current crazy world of competitive 40k. Lately the game has felt a little bit to rough with too much free options, unstoppable psychic phases, and even armies that get to activate on your opponents. It really kinda feels a bit to much but that is another editorial for a different day – today’s thought is what the heck can Roboute even do to make a dent in the current 40k landscape of giant pools of dice, free nonsense, and just sheer jerkhole rules insanity.
Primarch Stats
First let’s go ahead and throw out what his states most likely will be. I expect a complete copy from the Hours Heresy. Almost entirely 6’s across all his stats with his Weapon Skill probably going to the 7 he has in the Horus Heresy. From there he has all the other abilities as well – Eternal Warrior, Extra Bulky, Admantium Will, Fleet, Fearless, IWND, Fear, 2+/4+ armor, and probably a host of other random abilities will try to decipher later on. He will still have Independent Character as he will still have to work in 7th and I suspect that rule will stay in 8th – just a bit more thought on how things combine up. From there it looks like he has a crazy ass sword that I am guessing will be Str 10, ArmorBane, Soul Blaze, AP 1 and probably goes D when you roll a 6. He most likely has more attacks then his Horus Heresy Counterpart as 40k needs to have more damage when compared to 30k. His heavy bolter gauntlet has to be nutty too – and maybe the powerfist has some other ability other then just putting the hurt on someone. Heck wouldn’t it be neat if there was some kind of – grab function that either had him grabbing his opponent or a weapon and locking it down. Its hard to truly judge if this will be any good or not – as Magnus has the ability to fly which usually trumps any land walking super hero. You also mix in the ability to cast spells and you have a serious jump in their power differences. Hopefully Roboute’s point cost will be a good deal lower to help counter Magnus’s obvious power difference.
Special Abilities
The Stats are easy enough to figure out but the real thought should come into what does he actually do? What kind of abilities can he have that comes close to the psychic potential that Magnus has? We all know he can’t cast spells as it doesn’t fit into his fluff/design/etc so instead we have to look at some of the current “rules” we have seen with some of the other character releases. I suspect he will have a big “army” building change in there – either swapping some different options around into troops. I don’t expect him to have much “free” things attached as GW has slowly removed that from the newer releases. I think he will have a much different set of Chapter tactics he grants – most likely built into utilizing the doctrines as well as other abilities like auto failing/passing Leadership checks, maybe an order based system, as well as much larger and cooler bubble effects that spread out from his rather large and in charge base.
Think about how he could have abilities like – everyone gains relentless, stubborn, FNP, armorbane, rending, etc. It could be extremely powerful especially if he has options to pick and choose based on the battle situation at hand. It would feel very “fluffy” with his leader of the Imperium persona. I could even see some kind of Orbital bombardment options, picking a few Warlord traits, and complete control of deployment and battlefield set up. All of these things make a bit of sense when trying to think how a “true” leader Primarch would actually interact. He is supposed to be a military mastermind and while we all want characters to go smash stuff with – it would probably be beneficial if he was a force multiplier instead of just a force applier.
Can a Loyal Primarch be Balanced?
Now of course this all goes against my mind set of how we could have a truly balanced game. But balance is a hard word to justify when in reality what we really have is everyone’s army is good and can do dumb broken stuff. This is harder to balance as while it is easy to think of powerful options for each army – it does fall into the trap of the newest thing always being better because it was thought about later on. Still it is an interesting thing to ponder as we start to get closer to the age of multiple Primarchs coming about.
I do think it is much easier to do a Daemonic Primarch as they are usually preset to be some kind of MC – which removes some of the movement issues we normally see with a walking and talking character. They are also designed to be loners so their battlefield role is easier to make more powerful as they are already at a disadvantage as they have no way to shrug off hits that come in. This balances them a bit while some kind of leader/Independent character always has the potential to be added to a unit and create something that isn’t very good for the game. This is my worry about Roboute – the only way to make him good is allow him to be an IC – but if he has too many “abilities” that benefit other Imperial armies we run the chance he becomes part of the Deathstar/MSU/Summon metagame we currently are in.
Welcome aboard Roboute!
What do you think he should have beyond his 30k stats? We know his rules will be different as the 30k game versus 40k game is a completely different animal. Do you think he needs to be completely metagame defining? Do we want more game warping options like Magnus and most likely Roboute? Do you think will actually see a multi boobie Fulgrim running around and making everyone feel uncomfortable? Hopefully I will get a chance to see Roboute and give some previews/chatter on the monstrosity that is a more “human” primarch.
~Leave your Roboute hopes and dreams in the comments.
