Warhammer 40k: Codex Impact Imminent – Prepare for Change!
Codex Marines and Necrons are about to hit. Here’s some changes to keep your eyes on in the days ahead.
Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio,
The lead up to the release of a new codex, or two, is always exciting. Games Workshop will show us some teases to whet our appetites and we start speculating wildly. Now we know when the first two new codexes are being released we are starting to see more information for Space Marines and Necrons. That means we are in the wildly speculating phase of the game. Even when we see the codex contents, we still really have no idea how it will effectively affect the meta until released into the wild. This week we will look at a couple things that caught my eye, and probably yours.
New Costs
Earlier in the year, or rather late last year, Games Workshop reintroduced the ability to promote some of the characters in the chapter. So you could upgrade your Librarian to a Chief Librarian or your Captain to a Chapter Master, and it would only cost you a few command points. Luckily the previous addition provided you with a means to obtain a large number of command points to spend. In the previews we are seeing that it will now cost you points in order to upgrade your command models. The big question here is whether these upgrade costs are cost appropriate for what they do but we’ll have to see if there are any changes to their abilities. Apparently there will also be a cost with using a relic. If you look at the Necron part of the preview it shows that there is a cost associated with the new items for your Cryptek that are available. I’m not sure if this is wargear or if they are relics for the Cryptek.
In either case both these new way of upgrading and equipping your characters will have an effect on the game. The obvious effect is that these costs will further put a dent into what you can take in your army. We haven’t really seen any point values for the new book just yet. If point values are raised for most of the units in the codexes then these additional costs will further diminish the model count of the armies, or will force you, for good or ill, to choose units that may not be as optimal but are less costly. This may be as easy as dropping a model or two from your army or, for some armies, it could result in you having to decide which of your two needed units you will keep in your tournament army. This will lead to some players needing less models for their army and in the end that saves them some money so yay for that!
Stratagem Categories
One other thing that was introduced is Games Workshop dividing stratagems into categories. This seemed odd to me as I don’t see a reason to divide them into different categories. Games Workshop stated that it was so that they would be easier to find when organizing or during your game but I am not so sure. I don’t see how it would be easier to find if you still have to look for them in your book or deck of cards. They look to be color coded, so I assume that would help a little but it seems to be an addition that wasn’t really needed. Now it’s tin foil hat time as I wonder about something else you can possibly do with these stratagems being in categories and that is limitations.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, down the road, Games Workshop creates missions, for whichever way you play, that would limit you in what categories of stratagems you can use. For example, they could have a mission where you cannot use Wargear or Requisition stratagems. I wouldn’t be surprised of there were local tournaments that had these limitations in place just to change things up a bit. It would add some challenge to players to win a game with such limited resources available. The only issue I really see is that some armies may rely on certain types of stratagems and having limitations could make an army unplayable. I’m sure I am just overthinking it and Games Workshop would never make missions like that. I mean that’s almost like saying that they would make a mission that had a mechanic that nullified invulnerable save in a missions and they wouldn’t do that because it would invalidate a whole codex (Daemons). Oh wait, they did do that.
~That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and what you think the real reason for the categories, in the comments section below.
