40K: AM Doctrines Ranked Best to Worst
We’ve gotten a look at 5 doctrines for the Astra Militarum – let’s see how they stack up!
With the Armageddon Steel Legion reveal today, we now have a majority of the Regimental Doctrines. There are still 3 more on the way, but we think it’s a good time to take a look at each one that’s out and compare them against each other. Someone’s got to be the best, right?
That said, we’re only looking at the Doctrines – we’re not including Warlord Traits, Relics, Stratagems, there unique Orders, or anything that is unique to those Regiments. We’ve got to make a cut off somewhere so those are the lines! Let’s dive on in!
#1 Catachans – Brutal Strength
+1 Stength to all your Infantry with a boost to their leadership is already good. That puts them on par with a Tactical Space Marines in terms of raw strength. But what really sets this over the top is the Vehicle part of this doctrine. Vehicles re-rolling the number of hits is going to be a game changer. Just think about the types of weapons that are going to get a re-roll! This part alone is going to cause folks to run Leman Russ tanks. Baneblades? Manticores? Wyvrens? Hellhounds? Even the Deathstrike Missile?! There are more…But I think you get the point. And I’m pretty sure most of the other vehicles at least have access to a Heavy Flamer. That’s why Catachans are #1…so far!
#2 Mordians – Parade Drill
You can make fun of the uniforms all you want – they are going to light you up in the Overwatch phase. Look, basic Guardsmens aren’t really known for their accuracy anyways. But when they are hitting on 5’s during Overwatch with a bucket of Rapid Fire dice…You get the idea. Oh and it also boosts their Leadership, which, hey I’ll take it! Let’s also remember that Parade Drill also applies to their Vehicles, too. We’re not including stratagems in this list but if we were…wow. Bring on the Leman Russ Punishers!!
#3 Armageddon – Industrial Efficiency
These next two…they are kind of interchangeable. But we think that the Armageddon version is better.
Armageddon units get to Rapid Fire out to 18″ – that’s actually pretty scary considering you can toss out the same order to a lot of different units (looking at you conscripts with First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!). But we also liked the fact that their Vehicles are going to get to basically ignore the AP on small arms fire. Those two abilities combined are why coming above the next one on the list.
#4 Vostroyan – Heirloom Weapons
Adding 6″ to your Heavy or Rapid Fire weapons is pretty solid. The thing is, most Heavy Weapons have a range where the extra 6″ isn’t going to matter that much. It really enhances the Punisher Gatling Cannon the most…everything else is just icing on the long range cake. Cause a 78″ Battle Cannon is going to be super helpful if you are playing on a 6X4 table…
The extra range for their Rapid fire weapons is nice – and it brings their Lascannons up to a 15″ rapid fire range. That’s 3″ shorter than the Armageddon ability…And Armageddon tanks are probably going to get more use out of their boost to armor than the boost to their range. Sorry Vostroyans (good think you’ve got some good Stratagems/Orders to help you out – but we’re not counting those in this list).
#5 Valhallan – Grim Demeanour
We covered this in their Regimental Focus – but we’ll go over it again. The Infantry bonus is just kind of lack-luster here simply because you can just plop a Commissar with 6″ of them to get a BETTER effect. So unless Commissars have gotten a HUGE change, I don’t really see that part having a big impact. The Vehicle portion of this ability isn’t bad but it’s anchored to the Infantry part of the Doctrine which is dragging this one down to the bottom of our list. Sorry Valhallans, this outlook is just plain grim. But hey, you did get this sweet artwork:
That’s our list for the 5 Doctrines we’ve seen so far. There are 3 more on the way so who knows what this list will look like by next week! We’d like to mention that we don’t think the Astra Militarum and their Doctrines are going to be bad by any means – but when you’re just comparing Doctrine vs Doctrine, there are some pretty clear winners and losers.
What do you make of our Rankings? Would you swap any around? How do you think this list will change when the final 3 are revealed next week?
