Warhammer 40K: Yes Leagues of Votann Are Just Classic Marines, And They Might Be 40K’s New Kings
A lot of new Leagues of Votann news has dropped from GW. Here’s what it all means for 40K.
Leagues of Votann are coming to 40K very soon. It’s going to be one of the major new releases of 9th Edition. This is a whole new army dropping from scratch. It’s going to happen, and it will shake up the game. And yet a major issue is: will they be good? Often times new armies can struggle. They start off with a lower unit count and fewer options than established factions. They also have to be entirely invented out of whole cloth, without old units to draw on. And yet as we’ve talked about it seems like GW might be finding a place for them, filling someone else’s shoes. It looks like they just might be taking on the role of classic Space Marines.
More Proof They Are Just Marines
We talked before about how Votann seem to have a ton of units that are analogous to Classic Marines. They have units that are very similar to Tactical Marines, Assault Marines, Terminators, Assault Bikes, A Captain and Razorbacks. Even the stats seem pretty close to old-style one-wound Marines. The NOVA Open previews only really hammered this in. For instance, they’ve got a new “Space Marine Captain in terminator armor”. 
We’ve also got your kind of default special character.
The Hekaton Land Fortress sure seems a lot like the classic Land Raider. It’s a big heavy tank, that is also a transport. It’s got a lot of guns, but doubles as some sort of assault transport. I mean… thats a Land Raider! But this one has wheels.
The Brôkhyr Iron-master is another new reveal. And this guy is pretty much a Tech-marine. I mean he even comes with his servitors, right? These are specifically robots that are dumb.
The Grimnyr is pretty much a librarian. He does magic stuff. He’s got robes. And a force staff (maybe). The robot assistants are a new thing though!
Really the new Mole Mortar is a bit of a stand out. I guess it’s kinda similar to the Thunderfire cannon? Still it’s a nice nod to the past.
Can Leagues of Votann Take Over 40K?
Looking at all these new releases we really do seem to have the bulk of the old Classic Marine army functions copied onto Votann. Even a lot of the characters seem to have counterparts. Sure it’s not 100%, but it is surprisingly close. But how will they do on the table?
These Rules Look A LITTLE Powerful!
GW also showed off some of the army’s news rules. And can we just talk about Judgment of the Ancestors? Seriously this looks like one of the most powerful army-wide I’ve seen. I mean being able to make effectively your whole army auto wound on a 4+ to hit is… insane! Now sure, we haven’t seen the whole book so it might be that great. But it sure as heck seems amazing. I’m sure some will point out that it’s not your whole army. You do have to get Judgement Tokens on to targets. But honestly, this seems pretty easy to do.
With Ancestral Judgement, another army-wide rule, you automatically get to count as having an extra token. So now you only have to get two tokens onto the enemy to get the full 4+ auto wound (heck just a 5+ auto wound is super spicy). We know there are a ton of ways to give tokens to the enemy, including a rule that some characters have.
Heck for a CP it looks like you can use a Kahl to just give an enemy unit 2 tokens, which for your army now count as three. Thats a 4+ auto wound on effectively any unit (that the Kahl can target). With the option to give out tokens, and lots of ways for enemies to get tokens it seems like you’ll be benefiting from them a ton. Sure, you likely can’t give the whole enemy army two tokens. But you should be able to give key units two (which count as 3 for you). All this means if you have to focus fire a bit, something you already want to do, and your army can effectively skip rolling to wound. This seems pretty crazy, but I guess we have to see. I for one welcome our new Votann overlords!
Let us know what you think about these new rules, down in the comments!
