Goatboy’s 40K: March BIGFAQ 3 Thoughts
Goatboy here again and as we approach a bunch of 40k releases – let’s look to the near future and what could happen with BIGFAQ 3… and beyond.
I expect the FAQ to not be nearly as game breaking as we expect it to be – because again we all know unless the points listed were a huge mistake – we should not see any point changes. This leaves just rules changes and most likely balancing of Stratagems, relics, and warlord traits.
Castellan
First of all I do expect something coming for the Castellan Knight. I just don’t think it will be what people are wanting or complaining about. I feel the biggest thing they can do to fix it would be to just remove Super Heavy Auxiliaries from getting any Stratagems, Relics, Warlord Traits, etc. This would mean the single House Raven Knight would not be a House Raven knight anymore. It would just be a regular Knight without access to all the Command Point goodies that make it powerful. It already doesn’t have household traits (which it seems a lot of people forget about) but really having access to the Stratagems is what makes the Knight a rough thing to face. I feel this would be the cleanest way as we won’t see any point changes until Chapter Approved 2019 that will be coming out at the end of this year.
Strategems
From there I wonder if will see some kind of new set of “default” stratagems. The Counter strat has now shown up twice – with one army being very combo/popular and the other army being the newest one on the block. We know the Genestealer Cult Strat will get moved to 4 with a slew of other “FAQ” answers. The question is do we think other armies should have one? Why wouldn’t Tzeentch have one as he sees all the different strands of fate and picks something different? Why wouldn’t the Agents of the Imperium somehow do some counter intelligence? I really think the game could have used a slew of default stratagems that every army could use.
Modelcount Limits
The other interesting thing that could come about is maybe creating some kind of model limit for games. Look at some of the newer armies that run 200+ models on the table. That is a ton of models and we all know moving that many equals a large portion of time. Of course you could say they should just balance armies a bit more so hordes of cheap units are not nearly as useful but there is an issue when you have some armies cover the table in nonsense. I have no clue if this would even truly balance the game but hey – it would make Marines better.
Updated Marines
Speaking of Marines – there has to be a new book coming out soon. It is pretty rough to try and sell this game on a new player and give them the option that buying a Knight army would be easier and give you more wins. The Marine book is just in a weird place with not all the Chapters being useful and armies being fairly locked in how they are used. Yes the Death Watch army seems ok – but it still just doesn’t feel like the stories of Marines coming in, kicking butt, and taking back the Universe. I think Bolter Drill is interesting but I almost wish it would have done more. I don’t know what more it should do but will see with the new boxed set coming out, most likely more Primarus marines, and hopefully new Chapter Rules that don’t force you to take a Primarch to be good.
Chaos Marines
After Marines we have the Chaos Space Marines coming too. Obviously this will be a Black Legion release but it begs to question if we see a fully reworked Bad Guy Marines book. The whole push for Possession of things seems to be the new way to differentiate Chaos from their Good Guy relatives. I think this could be really cool and I hope with the new rules coming we see Marks becoming powerful. I was really disappointed to not see the Marks effect any of the Daemonic units in the CSM book. Sure not all of the Daemon rules are amazing but it would have been neat. Mark of Nurgle Maulerfiends sound awesome as well as some Khrone based stuff. I know Chaos as a whole just feels very bland right now with all the nerfs coming to the army from Strats to rule changes. I know we got 10 or so days to see something come like the return of Abbaddon and his obscenely large power claw/fist/bolter thingie.
Ynnari Updates
I heard chatter on something happening to the Ynarri at some point. From a White Dwarf release like the Assassins to a full fledged book – it seems the time for Soulburst is coming to an end. I think any free duplicate action is a bad thing. The Double Assault rules mean you had to be in assault and target multiple units – so it is less abusive than others. There are a few double shooting Strats as well – but they are very cost prohibitive. The Ynarri got to do it without really spending anything and got the strats on top of it. I really wish they would have just made the Ynarri a Craftworld thus removing some of the special Stratagems from their units. Will see what ends up coming down the pipeline. Maybe will get lucky have an updated Aspect Warrior models.
Sunsetting Things…
The last thing I want to talk about is what appears to be the coming end of the Index books. With Assassins coming out I think the only thing truly left without new rules is the Inquisition and the Sisters of Silence? All the other major armies have books so it is probably time to cut those books off. I still think we should just see a simple release of here is what every Character choice can take and how much it costs. This way we could still have biker characters. I have too many Jump Pack/Biker conversions to be happy about this – but we probably need to just get rid of them.
~What future things are you thinking about? What are you most looking forward to seeing fixed in BIGFAQ3?
