Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Banning Votann Isn’t the Game’s Biggest Problem
Goatboy here to talk about banning Leagues of Votann and why 40K has bigger problems!
The big thing from social media from 40k is the current German groups banning Leagues of Votann from showing up to their events. This is of course after they have playtested it a bit due to the leaked nature of the army’s rules. A bit of a knee jerk reaction for sure, but heck TO’s can do whatever they want. But still – the book is strong but there have been worse released ones in the past. Before now, no major TO tried to step in to crush an army due to its predicted effect on the meta.
First TO’s Have The Right
Now let me first say – any TO can do whatever rule they want for the game. Just like any player can decide to not go to the event if they want. I also feel like events should do more about banning things if they want. Again it is the TO’s power as they put their money, time, etc on the line and it is their event. If you don’t like how they play with their toys – then don’t play with them.
Right now the League of Votann feels like one of the stronger books rules-wise but hampered by weak secondaries. This weakness in how we score the game is going to make them have a very difficult time going into Necrons or the Sisters of Battle. Any army that can easily throw 90+ points without really worrying what the opponent does will give no eff’s about an army shooting space lasers at you. Which is a whole other issue currently in t40K’s meta.
But Votann Aren’t the Games Biggest Problem
We have 2 armies (Necrons & Sisters) that don’t really care what you do against them. You could try your hardest to kill their models. But in the end, you can’t catch up to armies that require you to score over 90 points to have any hope of winning the game. Those types of battles are just not that exciting to play against as you watch the score just tick up and there is nothing you can do against it. I am hoping we see a Balance Dataslate to get these two looked at – but will see. My big hope is we remove the ability to take 3 secondaries from your own personal army and go back to just being able to take 1 and the rest from the main rulebook. It feels like that was not the best decision as all books didn’t have at least 2 easy choices.
This is to say this game shouldn’t have easy-to-do scoring methods. It just feels like an uphill battle some factions just can’t overcome. It also leads to really poor board-control states when good players just roll on up and wreck you in arbitrary scoring instead of smashing your figs rules against each other. There is still a lot to like in the current environment of 40k and I have hope we see some nice changes in the update coming soon.
Bugs Are Also Strong
The final thing I expect to see is Nids getting hit again. Their dataslates are just way too strong currently. Leviathan builds are just heads and above other armies. They are still winning even though they have a very weak secondary game when compared to other books. Does this mean we have to take another 200 points out of their current builds to get them back in line? I don’t know as it sorta feels like the rumored rewrite of all the rules coming for 10th might be needed to really clean up all the messes.
The meta is going to be weird for the next month just due to the nature of an overpowered Leagues of Votann army not having all the rules but enough cobbled together counts-as minis is out there to have a go at it. It really depends on how TO’s feel about the army and what they think they should allow or not allow. I can see a case that anyone wanting to play full on Votann need to only use full official models – just to help tamp down the chaos. I also wonder if for releases like this we should just say the Codex isn’t legal until an official release is on the books.
The Future
Right now we have 2 more books coming with an updated World Eaters (PLEASE BE GOOD) and an updated Astra Militarum. I have worries on the AM more so than the Eaters of Worlds. The Guard are an army that could throw out way too much damage in an edition that seems to be enamored with each army having more damage potential than the next one. I don’t like how Squats ignore Toughness and I worry we could see something similar with the AM. We’ll just have to wait and see what the new hot tank will be and the drive to make you spending lots of bucks on three plastic vehicles you make pew pew sounds with.
As we end the year what changes do you want to happen with 40? What do you think should show up in the Dataslate? What do you feel will be the exciting release for the end of the year?
