Goatboy’s 40k Thoughts: What Makes a Model or Unit Too Good?
Goatboy here again with some 40k nonsense to throw out this week. Today let’s talk about what actually makes a unit too good.
There are a few criteria beyond the just points efficiency that causes these “too good units” to be allowed in the game, with issues we are currently having.
Pick Your Flavor of 40K
Of course with every big event having different terrain, missions, and opinions it gets hard to truly define what is a good unit. Each event seems to be building its own Metagame – which can cause a bit of a headache for GW to truly decipher. I don’t envy anyone trying to balance a game with so many variables. So instead of just looking at it from a unit perspective lets just pull a little further away and just look at the problem rules, keywords, and interactions that are causing the most headaches.
Toughness
The initial thing we want to look at is how Tough something is. Toughness seems to be mostly locked at a maximum of 8 – with that stat being used for giant knights, killer tanks, and anything considered normally a lord of war. A few things get that special toughness that don’t feel crazily overcosted. Lucky for the environment – those things are not nearly as “deadly” as some of the Lords of War that need to be that tough.
Beyond just toughness we also have to look at how many wounds it has. When you start to see some things get over 10 wounds is when you should start paying attention to a unit. Especially if it has the keyword Character. Most of the time the characters are not nearly an issue. We’ll go into how they can become an issue later on when I dive into damage potential. It is as you start to get over 10 wounds you see a cheap choice start to get better as they take a lot more to “remove” for their point cost. This is the danger as yes we want some things to be tough but if they have too many wounds for their value then you start to see how this is an issue for the game. The best example of this is how the old FW Giant Chaos Spawn went from being an auto take in Chaos lists to now left on the doorstop for someone else to adopt.
Damage Nullification & Deployment
After toughness the next biggest thing is any ability to either ignore damage via keyword rules or deployment advantages. The Character Keyword is a big example of this as you can easily hide behind your bubble wrap and be safe for the most part. Sure their are Sniper abilities but most of the time they haven’t panned out to be nearly as good as you had hoped they be. Again most Characters are not an issue beyond either being too keep and easy to add to an army or having the ability to cause too much damage.
Deployment advantages are probably the biggest culprit for causing a unit to be an issue. Look at how powerful Deep Strike is mixing in an army that can have a large amount of deployment units to allow the majority of your damage producers to stay off the table. It is the reason why the Hive Tyrant – always an issue in most editions – only got so powerful when it get the ability to Deep strike. Now the model could lie in wait – ignoring the Alpha Strike – and getting guaranteed to do some damage.
The other piece to the puzzle is abilities that help you ignore any damage that comes your way. Feel No Pain and the multiple types of rules that are like it are a pretty neat rule to help mitigate some damage to your characters. I feel like these kinds of rules are ok as they don’t mitigate the failed saving throw – they mitigate just the damage that is done to you. If you have a ton of 2+ damage shooting attacks, FNP most likely won’t save you one for one like it used to do. I think this ability is one of things you can use to help toughen up units and while it can be frustrating to watch an opponent ignore some damage – there are ways around it with damage 2+ weapons.
Dakka Dakka Dakka
Finally lets look at the damage potential of a unit. As the Adepticon tournament was going on – one of my best friends Nick Rose was playing the Hive Tyrant army that ended up taking the title. He lost to the winner who was also playing the exact list and with those two lists and another GSC/Hive Tyrant monster in the top 8 they sealed the Hive Tyrants fate as one of the problem units in the game. Talking locally with some friends I said any unit that can easily kill 10+ models in the shooting phase, do damage in the psychic phase, ignore deployment options, and can never be tied down is a problem unit. It basically does too much and makes sense on why anyone would take multiples of them as they solve the majority of issues an army could have. It is also why again the Tau Commander – while not taking 8th edition by storm – was an issue as it did the majority of what a Hive Tyrant did at a very low cost.
Its this lack of interaction an unit can provide that causes a lot of headaches. I really point to the shooting phase as a good barometer on how powerful something is. The shooting phase only causes the opponent interaction to be saving throws. There is no real chance for a double sided damage potential in a game and thus anything that can easily remove a large amount of models with a single interaction probably needs to either cost a lot or is very limited to how many hit the table top.
You can see this in the Reaper issue with Soulburst allowing a single unit to basically be 2 units (sometimes 3 with the Stratagem to shoot when the opponent deploys near you from reserves). The Reapers being able to move and shoot without any penalties and ignoring any armies force penalties makes it extremely powerful. They can easily hide in a building or in a wave Serpent and ride out the storm and always get a chance to do their damage. It is this guaranteed chance for damage potential that causes a lot of issues.
Is There a Solution?
I personally would prefer to see more things be on par with the good units. I think any game is as healthy as the ability to have a choice in your tools to use to game with. When something is too good that taking more then 3 will allow you to wreck games is probably an issue. But that is just me spitballing some thoughts on the subject. Right now we are waiting for the FAQ to come. Thanks to those dang dirty Hive Tyrants mucking up the process we have to wait and see what might come out of this new Army Meta with Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar, Knights, Death Watch, and the danciest space elves of them all the Harliequins.
~What other problem units you think are out there? Are they choices that just seem too powerful and are a must take no matter what? What do you think they will do with Pox Walkers? Limit them to only getting as big as 20 or maybe only initially purchased? Maybe everyone gets a free Vanilla Nut Tap done to them if they play them?
