Warhammer 40K: Yes, The Lion’s Rules Really Are De-fanged
Primarch Lion’El Jonson has brand new 9E rules -and they aren’t very good.
The Lion is returning. After 10,000 of living under a rock, the 1st Legion’s Primarch once again walks the stars. It’s a pivotal moment both for the game and the lore of Warhammer 40,000. It’s something players have been anticipating for years now and the culmination of several storylines. Of course, he has to have some crazy good rules. He is, after all a Primarch. In the lore, he can take down fellow Primarchs himself. Or maybe not. We took a look at the first set of his rules that were previewed and how they didn’t seem very good in the current game. Now we’ve seen the whole thing, and yeah. He really needs some help.
The First Taste Of The New Rules.
The other week GW showed off some of the Lion’s new rules. When we took a look at them we pointed out that the Lion is super kill-y. Indeed the Lion can put out a cool 40 damage in one round of CC. With up to twenty D2 attacks he can take out TWENTY MEQs in one round! He can kill a knight. He can take down ten Terminators. That seems crazy. His attacks are accurate, strong and have good AP. There are whole editions of the game where a single model killing 20 Marines (even when they were only 1 wound) in a round was unthinkable.
However, being kill-y in combat is just about all the Lion could do. As we pointed out, that’s just not enough these days. He’s not even particularly durable. Based on that a lot of people were saying he just wasn’t competitive. Of course, it’s hard to say without seeing a model’s full rules. A ton of readers pointed out we should wait for a final judgement until we get the full thing. Well, now we have it. So, what’s the verdict?
Yes, The Lion’s Rules Really Aren’t That Good
Well, here are the full rules for the Lion. So what super extra cool rules does he get that make him good? Well… none really. In fact he only gets three rules (and a Warlord Trait) that we had not seen before. Martial Exemplar is a slightly confusingly worded rule that just makes him a little better in combat. Nothing new. Primarch of The First Legion gives him a re-roll 1’s aura. This is decent but it’s also not anything you can’t get in the army by other, cheaper, means. It’s also worse than Guilliman’s buffs. Watchers in the Darklets him Deny the Witch twice a game. Err, sure? It’s just not super useful, and again isn’t anything you can’t get by other means. Lastly, his Warlord trait No Hiding from The Watchers allows him to let a friendly unit make Heroic Interventions. That’s the only genuinely new thing he brings to the table – and it’s pretty situational. The truth is he just doesn’t get all that much extra. Nor is he cheap, clocking in at 320 points.
Three Rules That Need Help
Let’s talk about a few of the Lion’s rules that just don’t really work well. The first off is the Emperor’s Shield. Despite being, you know, the shield of the God-Emperor of Mankind – Himself, it’s basically the worst relic storm shield in the game. It does nothing to make the Lion harder to kill, or bring any cool rule mechanics to the tabletop. The only thing it does is allow for a relatively minor amount of extra mortal wounds. And you know what? The Lion doesn’t need a shield to do extra wounds in combat. He needs a shield to help him survive.
Next up we’ve got Watcher in The Dark. The effects of this rule aren’t bad (though they are not great either), but I really dislike the twice-per-battle part. It’s just an extra amount of record-keeping I don’t like to see in the game. One-use-only rules are fairly easy to keep track of. However, once you get into limited-use rules, that are more than once, it just gets confusing and easy to lose-count, or cheat.
Lastly, and this one is kind of a silly pet peeve I admit, but why do you have the option to only fire one profile? There is no downside to shooting with both.
He’s Just Not Worth It, and That’s 9th Edition’s Fault
The sad fact seems to be that in modern 9th Edition, being a super kill stick just isn’t enough. Despite having great stats and being able to carve up stuff, The Lion just not worth it without some really great extra rules. This is the edition of big rules and high lethality. The Lion doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It’s this fact that a lot of tournament players are reacting to when they say he’s not competitive. It really shows how crazy 9th Edition has gotten, that a character that would be super over-powered in almost any other edition is looked at as being kind of meh. On top of his limited use, the model is kind of slow and not that hard to kill. There are simply better options for the First Legion.
Some people have said that his rules are meh, due to them being made for 10th Edition. But I don’t think that’s true. 10th is seeing a total overhaul of the datasheets and how much information and rules are on them. So this isn’t a datasheet that works with 10th at all. In addition, at least two of his rules, Deny the Witch and Warlord Traits look like they won’t be in 10th. I think and hope that the Lion is going to get totally new rules in 10th that fit the new game better. So I guess it’s not a big deal that these 9th Edition rules are weak. The model is a must-own masterpiece, and these rules are only going to be around for a few months anyway. It might be sad to see rules that are such a mismatch for the lore of the character, but we get a redo soon. Very soon.
Let us know what you think about the Lion’s rules, down in the comments!
