Warhammer 40K: MSU Armies Are Dominating And Something Should Be Done About It
Let’s take about how 9th Edition is being dominated by MSU armies.
About 15 months ago at the dawn of 9th I wrote about how it appeared that MSU (multiple small unit) armies were going to be really good in 9th. Now with the edition well underway and a number of large events have taken place, we can see that things have turned out how I predicted. MSU armies are dominating the game and are arguably overpowered. Let’s take a look at why and if something can be done.
Why Is MSU Good?
If you want an in-depth look at why MSU is good in 9th, go read the article linked above. The short of it is that changes to coherency, morale, and the introduction of blast all combined to hurt large units. Small units were unaffected by these changes making them comparatively better. In addition 9th’s focus on objections and more importantly – actions highly rewards taking lots of units. A 2 man unit can preform an action just as well as a 40 man unit, with far smaller an opportunity cost. Throw in some of the reasons that MSU has always been good, such as making the enemy waste shots with overkill on light units and you’ve got a playstyle that is highly rewarded by the rules.
Is MSU doing well?
So… is MSU actually doing well? I’d say it’s a pretty clear yes at this point. The vast majority of meta lists and event-winning lists are what I’d say fall into MSU style. Take for example Richard Siegler’s list that he won the Orlando Open with. This list has a total of 20 units in it. The majority of these units were taken below maximum size. Out of 6 troop choices, 5 of them were taken at the minimum size.
For another example look at the host of winning Drukhari lists. It’s common to find most of these running 20+ units with loads of minimum sized squads of Wracks and Incubi backed up by a bevy of light vehicles. Pretty much any army that can run this style (so not Imperial Knights, though many have switched to fielding more cheaper knights) is doing it. If there is one dominant play style in 9th, it’s MSU, and it is winning.
The Failed Attempt To Stop MSU
One of the reasons MSU is so pervasive is that there isn’t really any downside to it, and there are a lot of benefits. Now it seems like GW did try to build a sort of downside into MSU builds. This is the increased number of targeted effects. 8th Edition saw most buffs take the form of an aura, but in 9th auras are less common and lots of armies have targeted buffs. These could be stratagems, or prayers, or psychic powers, or weird Admech buffs. All of them have this in common: they affect one unit only. Now on the face of things this hurts MSU, a larger unit will get more out of a buff, so you want to have a good target. Trying to target and buff a lot of small units doesn’t work well.
The problem with this plan is that all these effects can only be used once a phase or turn. Stratagems can only ever be used once to target one unit. In general, the other effects and rules only get to be used once as well. This means you only actually need one target for your buffs since you can only target one unit. In addition since a lot of buffs stack it’s good to stack everything on one unit.
If for instance, you had a stratagem to give a unit +1 to the unit and no limit on how many times you could use it, you’d likely want to affect as many troops as possible. This would hurt MSU as trying to buff 6 minimum-size units would be cost-prohibitive. Instead you’d be rewarded for taking 3 double-size units and only spending half the CP. But since you can only use that strat once, taking one large unit is all you need. This is why you get a lot of armies like Richard’s with one large unit, to target with buffs, and then a bunch of MSU. It’s a horridly effective combination of Death Stars and MSU.
Can It Be Fixed?
Maybe we should start by asking, should it be changed? Personally, I think yes, some sort of change is needed. Anytime one type of army build becomes super dominant it’s bad for innovation and the game. There should also be lots of valid types of armies to play with and use. So what could be changed? Well, we need some way of better rewarding non-msu armies.
An easy way of course is more restrictive army building rules that limit the number of units you can take, but that’s unlikely to happen. A simple change could be making more missions/secoundaries that punish MSU armies, but that is hard to balance. Another option is to follow AoS and give points discounts to larger units. Ultimately I don’t know what the easy fix is, but I would like to see something change.
Let us know what you think should be done, down in the comments.
