Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K Metawatch: Towering Is Breaking the Game
Let’s talk about the big issue in competitive Warhammer 40K. Towering is breaking the game, and honestly – it needs to go.
It’s a rough time for some armies in 40K right now. Imperial Knights and at a lesser extent Chaos Knights appear to be one of the main Gate Keeper armies for a lot of lists. If you cannot deal with their damage output, big fat bodies, and movement you are at a very distinct disadvantage. It is almost comical how much of a difference the power armies are, compared to the middle and lower half of lists. It gets pretty nutty.
Yes we know Aeldari and GSC appear to be some of the best armies. While they beat up a lot of the big boys – those big boys seem to have a distinct rough time for any lower list. It just seems unfair as they come to town, wreck some of your stuff, and turn your rec center into a condo. It just doesn’t feel nearly as exciting of a game when they are involved.
Knights – 40K’s Gatekeepers Have Returned
Which leads to the question – what could we do? What can be done to try and mitigate this? Is there anything we can do?
So what the heck do we do about this? What is the “fix” to allow Knights to work and armies to function as they should be. Is Towering just the major issue or is there other hidden things that hide under the offensive capabilities of the army?
I think it is two-fold with one fix that should happen right away. Then we can have a better discussion of how this one change affected more than just this army and the rest of the game. But those are just pie in the sky discussions. The big change is what I think should be pulled out of the game right now.
Get Rid of Towering
Towering is just an issue and I think the game should remove that keyword. This would mean terrain would be terrain for everyone. This is probably the easiest and cleanest way to fix this as it would leave Knights working as is. It would ensure they couldn’t damage you without having to do the things other models/units need to do in the game. They would have to move, get actual Line of Sight, and have to play like all the other plastic toys on the 40K tabletop.
We have seen this rule mechanic basically removed from the old units that had it in 9th. I think we should just continue to remove it from everything. The idea was it wasn’t very fair that units could “shoot” your Knight while it couldn’t shoot back. It was not very exciting and just not a nice interaction other than keeping the big Knights from being nearly as deadly as they are showing right now.
Plus Some Terrain Tweaks
The easier fix is to let them be blocked by terrain like everyone else. The only tricky thing in all of this is the kinda complicated fix of how units shoot “through” a terrain piece they are currently inhabiting. They have to be fully within the terrain to be able to shoot thru it to someone behind it. It might just be easier to either say Towering units now can shoot thru terrain if they are touching or partially within the terrain piece.
This way Towering is still in the cards but now instead of letting these models shoot all over the board and force event TOs to create insanely high walls, block all windows, and ensure that true Line of Sight is enforced. It just feels like a much cleaner fix than actually changing all the cards/armies/etc.
Now Let’s Talk About Anti-Tank Weapons
Ditching Towering is only the first part of fixing things. The other fix is something I think we both like and dislike in the game. The changes to Toughness is a nice shift as it allows GW and units to create actual tough things in the game. Increasing the range can help create some of the “tougher” tank options they want. But it also hurts armies that don’t have enough damage abilities to hurt these things.
The guns people have access to seem to have lost some of the damage ability they used to use to pop these boxes. The Multi-Melta is a big loser in this with how its strength doesn’t matter versus so many of these boxes. Where it once was a murder machine for tanks it is now just a tickle unless you have Reroll to wounds to try and push thru hitting a 5+ on those 2 hits.
Heck the Lascannon is less scary too and it’s kind of a shame as so many armies just don’t have the punch to remove the Knights. Why is the best anti vehicle weapon only owned by the Eldar? Why aren’t we seeing more updates to the big guns instead. This is a sticky question that takes more to work on. Remember, we would need a full shift how the game works, all the cards, and how weapons should be set up.
I hope we see some updates with the codexes coming but will have to see. It might be things like these guns get a +1 to wound versus vehicles or other options like that. It could just be shifting some of the strength around to allow damage to be a 4+ to wound. But right now it just feels like a lot of haves and have nots in the game while some big monsters wreck the playing field.
What do you think? Are Knights playing the playground bully role to well? Should we see a shift to allow other armies a chance against these guys?
