Goatboy’s 40K: Ghaz’ Artificial Toughness Can Shake Up the Game
Goatboy here to talk about Ghaz’ “maximum” 4 wounds per phase rule and how this rule might show up in other armies.
Goatboy here and while Saga of the Beast was low on overall amount of rules – they did give 40k something unique to their universe. The overall change to Ghazghul and his “maximum” 4 wounds per phase rule is a rather interesting one. They already have it in AOS and while powerful I don’t know if that model is dominating the game. I don’t think Ghaz will dominate the game as well but it does give you an interesting set of questions on how this rule might show up in other armies.
We all know how 40k is extremely deadly right now. Big things have to be crazy tough, have a ton of wounds, or some other kind of protection shenanigans to get a chance to activate. This leads me into thinking this might show up on other big fat boi’s looking to cause trouble in the wilds that is the 40k competitive scene. So where would we even begin?
The Character Keyword
Well right now the game has a lot of heroes in the fluff. Lucky for us most normal sized heroes have a pretty powerful protection in the Character rule. This little rule keeps them from getting mowed down by random bullet hell, Basilisk shells, and whatever other terrible damage could befall them. This all means that a lot of characters are defined by – can they be targeted or not. This means that having someone have a few more wounds can turn a model from an all star to a bench warmer in an instant. Look at how the Lord Discordant moves up and down the good to bad ranking depending on the match up, terrain, and how you use him in the army. Could you imagine how terrifying he would be with 9 wounds? Most likely he wouldn’t degrade, can’t be targeted and would still be a combat monster. But of course with 12 wounds he can become a liability if he is targeted quickly.
Primarchs & Daemons
With that in mind – then wouldn’t this sort of rule be interesting to show up on some of these big bad monsters? Would it make them too good? Could you imagine Mortarion where the only damage that could be done to him was to bracket him turn by turn? Would he become a heck of a lot more interesting in knowing that most likely he would get to turn 2 and maybe even turn 3? Would Magnus be too good if he could easily fly around and throw out some smites and damage spells without having to rely on that invulnerable save that we all know isn’t nearly as amazing as the fluff seems to indicate. Heck the place I expect this sort of rule to show up would be on the 4 giant things everyone loves in plastic – but no one ever sees on the tabletop beyond fluffy armies and those crazy AOS things.
The Greater Daemons are where this rule should reside as these are beings of Chaos. Pure unadulterated madness given form and purpose – the Greater Daemons need these powerful protection rules to allow them to do the things they were born to do – get into combat and start chopping things up for the Chaos Gods. How nutty would it be to see a Bloodthirster make it base turn 1 when the player didn’t have to go first? Or how about the sultry seductions of a Keeper of Secrets sprinting down the battlefield into your lines. There are tons of stories of these monsters surviving fighting a Primarch but right now they just – don’t fit in the game.
But Not Everything
I love the idea of big monsters and I don’t want this rule to show up on all of them. They should be left for the things that kinda make no sense. The avatars of Gods feels like a good place to throw this rule onto without having to worry about something too polarizing in the environment. I wouldn’t want this on a Knight as it doesn’t feel right. Nor should this be on other titanic monsters as they usually have enough wounds to mitigate the first round bad touch of your friendly neighborhood DB opponent. These giant daemons feel like they need this. Heck – I wonder if will see a change in their new updated rules in Engines of war? Could this foretell a whole slew of AOS additions to the game in the coming future that is 9th edition?
What do you guys think? Is this a good rule? Abe seems to think this is a bad rule as it means the regular rules of 40k imbalance these giant monsters so much they need to invent a form of protection for them. I think it is more of an example where a good save dies to the weight of Math in a way the game is currently at. Thus to mitigate giving everyone an insane save we need to look at others ways to make them tough beyond amazing saves or chances to ignore damage. Just locking their output is one way to allow you army to do the damage and move to something else without having to worry about the whole – oops you rolled all den 4+’s I guess you win that can happen in 40k right now. Or just layering on too many “saves” to make it not as much fun.
So Greater daemons – give them all a flat only take 4 wounds a turn? Good or bad?
