10th ed faction focuses

Archon_91 wrote:

Fair point ... after seeing the chaos knights faction focus I'm kinda wondering if we are gonna be a cooy paste of that ... where most of our shenanigans are going to revolve around forcing battle shocks and getting bonuses against battle shocked units ...

Moving on, the Orks faction focus kinda felt ... empty? I don't know much about orks so I can't say but it feels like they didn't get a whole lot

Well, their rules seem designed to help them a) get stuck in, and b) inflict a lot of damage when they do. Really, that's all orks need to completely destroy you.

The weapons on the stompa look pretty scare though.

Archon_91 wrote:

Fair point ... after seeing the chaos knights faction focus I'm kinda wondering if we are gonna be a cooy paste of that ... where most of our shenanigans are going to revolve around forcing battle shocks and getting bonuses against battle shocked units ...

I really hope not . . . so probably.

Archon_91 wrote:

Moving on, the Orks faction focus kinda felt ... empty? I don't know much about orks so I can't say but it feels like they didn't get a whole lot

Some of the army abilities definitely feel like they have more going on than others.

Looking at the Thousand Sons rules and...yeah, wow, the disparity is real.

Once a game, Orks die a little less readily and hit stuff real good.

Meanwhile, TS get a whole warp charge generation system with a decent number of unique spells that to my unfamiliar eyes seem pretty fluffy and decently powerful. I can only hope we fall on the less boring side of that fence.

Is it just me, or has the community website not updated to show who's up tomorrow? We're scraping the end of the line here, so I'm not sure if they'll be keeping to the Imperial->Chaos->Xenos order they've stuck to so far.

TheBaconPope wrote:

Looking at the Thousand Sons rules and...yeah, wow, the disparity is real.

Once a game, Orks die a little less readily and hit stuff real good.

Of course, the faction previews are a bit incomplete, as we don't know what all of the individual unit abilities are for any of them.

According to a response that the warhammer40k facebook account gave to someone who asked about Drukhari on the official preview link thread, Grey Knights are tomorrow and Drukhari are next week (though they didn't say specifically when next week).

TheBaconPope wrote:

Looking at the Thousand Sons rules and...yeah, wow, the disparity is real.

Once a game, Orks die a little less readily and hit stuff real good.

Meanwhile, TS get a whole warp charge generation system with a decent number of unique spells that to my unfamiliar eyes seem pretty fluffy and decently powerful.

Absolutely.

Regardless of which ends up being stronger, I much prefer bonuses like SoB or TS because they're far more interactive, rather than being either passive bonuses or powers only usable once-per-game.

TheBaconPope wrote:

I can only hope we fall on the less boring side of that fence.

Our power for the last 4 editions has been a dull-as-dishwater table with zero interactivity.

And while, say, Eldar and Harlequins both got new dice mechanics to play around with, our new ability was... an extra AP on a 6 to wound on melee attacks.

You'll forgive me if I don't get my hopes up on that front.

I wonder if we will see a "big" release ... basically a dump of plastic minis replacing all the finecast we lost recently ... or we will lose all of those models and get model equivalents in kill team and boarding patrol .... like how the hand of the archon from soulshackle might replace the court of the archon

Archon_91 wrote:

like how the hand of the archon from soulshackle might replace the court of the archon

God I hope that doesn't happen. The court are a great unit and I love their current concept, and being replaced by a half-arsed upgrade sprue for Warriors would just be a poor showing.

Grey Knights are now the "teleports behind you: nothing personal kid" faction, I guess. Didn't read too much in depth, but they seem cool.

More importantly, Dark Eldar are confirmed to have their preview on Monday! Let us hope that it's better than the 8th edition index article where a big selling point was the newfound AT potential of splinter pistols

TheBaconPope wrote:

More importantly, Dark Eldar are confirmed to have their preview on Monday! Let us hope that it's better than the 8th edition index article where a big selling point was the newfound AT potential of splinter pistols

Or the 7th edition preview, where they outright lied about what we were getting. The preview article claimed that wracks could take power mauls.

WE'RE ON MONDAY!!!!

And now for a weekend of crushing anticipation and speculation

Archon_91 wrote:

And now for a weekend of crushing anticipation and speculation

Don't mind if I do!  

Faction Ability - Power from Pain.

The Drukhari drink the pain and suffering of their foes giving them unravelled combat prowess.


Starting on the 4th turn, all Drukhari units (except HQs, Mandrakes, Incubi, Characters, Coven, and Cult) gain the Sustained Hits 1 ability on melee attacks.


Subfaction Ability - Psychic Hatred.

The Drukhari really really really really hate psykers.

Drukhari detachments cannot include any models with [Psychic] abilities.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Archon_91 wrote:

And now for a weekend of crushing anticipation and speculation

Don't mind if I do!  

Faction Ability - Power from Pain.

The Drukhari drink the pain and suffering of their foes giving them unravelled combat prowess.


Starting on the 4th turn, all Drukhari units (except HQs, Mandrakes, Incubi, Characters, Coven, and Cult) gain the Sustained Hits 1 ability on melee attacks.


Subfaction Ability - Psychic Hatred.

The Drukhari really really really really hate psykers.

Drukhari detachments cannot include any models with [Psychic] abilities.

Ooh good start. The preview has to pair that with the most useless showcase of units/weapons possible to really capture that traditional GW vibe.

So show us the datasheet for...Mandrakes, that unit which shares no common characteristics/loadouts with any other part of our army.

Then maybe a weapon focus on Shredders and one of the five forgettable Coven melee weapons which is not the EC whip.

Then maybe a strategem that let's Hellions specifically fall back and charge in the same turn. And cap it off with an exclusive preview of a new Primaris Lieutenant crushing Baron Sathonyx under his boot since we've been so eager to see some of our characters return. Just for a super extra special treat.

TheBaconPope wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Archon_91 wrote:

And now for a weekend of crushing anticipation and speculation

Don't mind if I do!  

Faction Ability - Power from Pain.

The Drukhari drink the pain and suffering of their foes giving them unravelled combat prowess.


Starting on the 4th turn, all Drukhari units (except HQs, Mandrakes, Incubi, Characters, Coven, and Cult) gain the Sustained Hits 1 ability on melee attacks.


Subfaction Ability - Psychic Hatred.

The Drukhari really really really really hate psykers.

Drukhari detachments cannot include any models with [Psychic] abilities.

Ooh good start. The preview has to pair that with the most useless showcase of units/weapons possible to really capture that traditional GW vibe.

So show us the datasheet for...Mandrakes, that unit which shares no common characteristics/loadouts with any other part of our army.

Then maybe a weapon focus on Shredders and one of the five forgettable Coven melee weapons which is not the EC whip.

Then maybe a strategem that let's Hellions specifically fall back and charge in the same turn. And cap it off with an exclusive preview of a new Primaris Lieutenant crushing Baron Sathonyx under his boot since we've been so eager to see some of our characters return. Just for a super extra special treat.

Behold a new and improved unit that stalks from the shadows, the mandrakes are a unit to be feared and true hunters and their new statline shows this

UNIT FEATURE MANDRAKES
M10" T4 SV 3+ W2 Ld6+ OC3
Core: Deep Strike
Faction: Psychic Hatred

Hunt from the shadows:
During any movement phase you may remove this unit from the battlefield. During the deployment step of the next Movement phase (yours or your opponents) you may set this unit up anywhere on the battlefield. This may include within engagement range of any enemy unit (this counts as this unit having charged)

Ranged Weapons:
Baleful Blast (psychic) rng 24" A3 BS3+ str 5 AP -2 D1

Melee Weapons
Glimmersteel Blade rng Melee A4 WS3+ str 4 AP -2 D1

...
It would be just like GW to do this and make the unit actually unusable

Oh man, that's too close for comfort.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/29/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-Drukhari/

It's here and it's every bit as disappointing as I expected it to be.

Wow...yeah, not a fan overall. My thoughts, I guess:

Pain Token generation - pretty cool in my opinion! It could be better, but it feels a bit more fluffy than Power from Patience. The actual abilities you get from them though? I honestly think it's the single worst faction ability that's been previewed so far. At least Death Guard's thing js always on. Like, if you're going to go through the trouble of writing a unique token generation system thing, can you at least think of more than two options on what to spend your Dark Eldar Fun Bucks on?

Detachment ability is super meh and boring too.

The Venom is bad. Just bad. Who thought that giving it T6 and keeping it at W6 was acceptable?? Oh and it's invuln went down to 6+...it at least keeps a -1 to hit and transport capacity 6. Plus some weird combat squad thing that let's you split a big unit between two venoms I guess? And the ability for a unit to embark at the end of the fight phase for free, that's pretty neat. Still, this thing is going to be obliterated by even squad level AT.

Poison is now S2/3, Anti-infantry 3+. Which is...serviceable. They've given up trying to pretend that splinter weapons can even remotely threaten non-infantry i guess. Do bikers have their own keyword? That's going to really hurt if so. And of course, as Soulless has noted, GW historically overvalues Poison to a massive degree, that seems to be carrying over here. We can wound chaff on a 3+ at least...that's something.

Splinter Cannons are down to A3 with Sustained Hits, -1 AP, D2, and Poison. It's fine. Spinter Rifles are A2, Assault, and Poison. It's slightly more useful against infantry, but pretty much useless otherwise, as usual. Blasters/Blast Pistols are still S8 - which leaves Dark Lances as our only widely accessible anti-tank. I think that more than anything will kill the Venom as an option. Shredders still suck imo. It looks like melee weapons for at least unit leaders have been condensed into a single profile...that does NOT bode well for our HQs. Haywire Blasters look decent, actually. Shame we can't get them on more platforms.

Kabalites get to keep their 4+ save and their 6++, and they get sticky objectives. Hurray. Lilith still mulches in melee. Hurray.

The Strategem shown will rarely see use, I think.

Overall...I'll play some introductory games of 10th, but I'm not confident I'll be committing to the edition at this point.

I just realised that I misread our detachment ability. I thought our HQs provided an extra pain token each turn.

Nope. It's 1 per HQ at the start of the game only.


I already miss Blade Artists.

Some things that I noticed.

MV on kabalite warriors went up to 8", though the venom lost 2" of movement. My guess is that wyche base MV might be 9"?

In the studio commentary they note that there is a strat for advance+charge that affects only wych cult units.

The 'combat squad' ability that venoms have suggests that wyches and kabalite warrior squads will be locked at 10 models per unit.

Shredders are torrent weapons now.

Haywire scourges are looking pretty good right now. Assuming that they still get 2 shots per weapon, and that the BS will be better than the Talos version. If not, then they'll probably need a pain token to mitigate that.

I'm wondering how the hell we are going to deal with monsters, aside from dark lances. If we get a version of the potent metallotoxins strat, which gives anti-monster and anti-vehicle to a unit, then that would be okay, I guess. Hopefully the coven units will have some tools for that built in.

It's weird that the blaster has better AP than the dark lance. Also, the nerf to blast pistols is stupid. They could at least increase the range to 12" if they're going to lower the damage to 1d3.

Also, apparently all of the sybarite weapon choices are just one sybarite weapon profile w/ anti-infantry 3+ and AP -1.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I just realised that I misread our detachment ability. I thought our HQs provided an extra pain token each turn.

Nope. It's 1 per HQ at the start of the game only.


I already miss Blade Artists.

The only thing that bothers me about the pain tokens is that you have to spend them at the beginning of the phase. So, it's very possible to put them into units that don't need them

Otherwise, the ability to give as many units as you have tokens reroll hits in the shooting or the fight phase is not that bad. And you also get a fresh pain token every time you wipe an enemy unit and every time an enemy unit fails a battle shock test.

So, in a realspace raid detachment with 6 starting pain tokens, if you invest several tokens into a good alpha strike, it should start paying out in more pain tokens. Then you just keep it going.
Of course, this is assuming that the units themselves are decent enough in their own right to pull this off.

One point brought up on another forum thread is that for rules purposes, embarked units firing out of a transport count as the vehicle itself firing. Which means that RAW one pain token can benefit both the vehicle and the embarked unit. That helps matters a bit.

If infantry goes up to 10 man squads by default, that's completely stupid, but I think that's what's going to happen. Probably to avoid having to write limits around heavy weapons in 5 man squads.

The more I look at the Venom the more confused I am. In an edition where vehicles are supposed to be okay in melee, why does the vehicle covered in knives suck? Why does the Taurox of all things get to be an assault vehicle, but the open decked skimmer with people literally hanging off the sides so they can more easily enter battle not?

What targets are the Blaster and Blast Pistol even supposed to shoot at?

And if DE's strength is supposed to come from Strategems and Enhancements, that's crap too imo. Because those are detachment specific, so if there's one that is critical to our success, we better hope there's an equivalent in any of other detachments we'll get at some point.

Also I'm a little less enthused about the Haywire Blaster at the stats shown after some napkin math. On the Talos it's doing an average of...1.125 damage and 1/3rd of a mortal wound to a 3+ save vehicle. Scourges, assuming BS 3+, and that their weapons haven't been condensed into a generic "Scourge Gun", and assuming they can still take four Haywire blasters, and assuming those Haywire Blasters maintain A2, fare a bit better, with 4.000 damage and 0.89 mortal wounds against the same target.

krayd wrote:

The only thing that bothers me about the pain tokens is that you have to spend them at the beginning of the phase. So, it's very possible to put them into units that don't need them

Otherwise, the ability to give as many units as you have tokens reroll hits in the shooting or the fight phase is not that bad. And you also get a fresh pain token every time you wipe an enemy unit and every time an enemy unit fails a battle shock test.

I just find the abilities boring as feth.

Where is giving a unit FNP? Or healing some wounds?

Where's giving a unit AFS?

Feth rerolling advance/charge distances, where's the ability to advance and charge? You know, the thing our entry army used to get as standard.

Where's anything beyond the most boring possible rules?

TheBaconPope wrote:

The more I look at the Venom the more confused I am. In an edition where vehicles are supposed to be okay in melee, why does the vehicle covered in knives suck? Why does the Taurox of all things get to be an assault vehicle, but the open decked skimmer with people literally hanging off the sides so they can more easily enter battle not?

Because Dark Eldar aren't allowed to be fast. Ever.

TheBaconPope wrote:

What targets are the Blaster and Blast Pistol even supposed to shoot at?

They're supposed to fire at Marine vehicles and then glance uselessly off them, to prove how awesome Marines are.

TheBaconPope wrote:

And if DE's strength is supposed to come from Strategems and Enhancements, that's crap too imo. Because those are detachment specific, so if there's one that is critical to our success, we better hope there's an equivalent in any of other detachments we'll get at some point.

I agree, though I think the stratagem they chose to preview certainly hints that stratagems will definitely not be the saving grace of the detachment.

Though, frankly, I think the stratagems would have to dispense free pringles to make up for the detachment ability.

TheBaconPope wrote:

Also I'm a little less enthused about the Haywire Blaster at the stats shown after some napkin math. On the Talos it's doing an average of...1.125 damage and 1/3rd of a mortal wound to a 3+ save vehicle. Scourges, assuming BS 3+, and that their weapons haven't been condensed into a generic "Scourge Gun", and assuming they can still take four Haywire blasters, and assuming those Haywire Blasters maintain A2, fare a bit better, with 4.000 damage and 0.89 mortal wounds against the same target.

So how many units of Scourges are we using to kill a Rhino?

TheBaconPope wrote:

Also I'm a little less enthused about the Haywire Blaster at the stats shown after some napkin math. On the Talos it's doing an average of...1.125 damage and 1/3rd of a mortal wound to a 3+ save vehicle. Scourges, assuming BS 3+, and that their weapons haven't been condensed into a generic "Scourge Gun", and assuming they can still take four Haywire blasters, and assuming those Haywire Blasters maintain A2, fare a bit better, with 4.000 damage and 0.89 mortal wounds against the same target.

You're missing a key detail about anti-

For anti- weapons (in this case, anti-vehicle on haywire), all rolls at or above the number (4+) count as critical wounds. So, with devastating wounds, it means that all wound rolls of 4+ will translate into mortals (at 3 per wound).

I think that the venom's main role is just to get troops onto objectives or near them, since venoms also have innate deep strike now as well. You can also split up a 10 man kabalite unit and put all of the heavy/special weapons in the venom, deep-strike it in, and leave the rest behind as home objective holders.

krayd wrote:

TheBaconPope wrote:

Also I'm a little less enthused about the Haywire Blaster at the stats shown after some napkin math. On the Talos it's doing an average of...1.125 damage and 1/3rd of a mortal wound to a 3+ save vehicle. Scourges, assuming BS 3+, and that their weapons haven't been condensed into a generic "Scourge Gun", and assuming they can still take four Haywire blasters, and assuming those Haywire Blasters maintain A2, fare a bit better, with 4.000 damage and 0.89 mortal wounds against the same target.

You're missing a key detail about anti-

For anti- weapons (in this case, anti-vehicle on haywire), all rolls at or above the number (4+) count as critical wounds. So, with devastating wounds, it means that all wound rolls of 4+ will translate into mortals (at 3 per wound).

I think that the venom's main role is just to get troops onto objectives or near them, since venoms also have innate deep strike now as well. You can also split up a 10 man kabalite unit and put all of the heavy/special weapons in the venom, deep-strike it in, and leave the rest behind as home objective holders.

Correct on Haywire Blasters, yeah that massively improves their utility. I think they'll be pretty decent given that.

I completely missed that Venom's now have Deep Strike. That doesn't change my opinions on them too much, I think they'll get one turn to drop out of Reserves/from cover and then get mulched in the next shooting phase. Which, eh, I'd like them to be a bit more than a suicide unit personally.

I think a better approach to our detachment rule would be to give additional PfP benefits. So you'd get 2-3 base, then maybe 2 additional ones per detachment so you could offer unique abilities for different playstyles

Ok ... so ... mixed feelings on the reveal, I like that Shredders are now just straight up better flamers at 18" auto hit and staying at str 6 ignores cover, the darklight range of weaponry is now very distinctly separated into, use against infantry/elite Infantry (blast pistol), use against elites/light vehicles (bikes, walkers, monsters) (blaster), use against heavy units/vehicles (bigger monsters, tanks) (dark lance), poison becoming anti-infantry 3+ is disappointing but on brand for GW as they slowly continue taking more and more stuff away from us ... i agree, I'm scared that our hqs have been reduced to <blast pistol, HQ CC weapon> and no options for anything,
Venoms are ... strange, I love stealth giving it just straight up -1 to be hit but the complicated weirdness of splitting up units of kabalites and wyches (which suggests wracks can only be units of 5) and the being worse in combat then a damn rino is insulting ...

Kabalite warriors have sticky objectives, sweet, their standard slection of ranged weapons, fine, it also looks like they (and the rest of the army) have the 6++ from the 9th ed pfp table I know it doesn't go up to the 5++ but in all honesty did that really make that much of a difference?

As mentioned before Lelith still blends infantry in cc and the ability mentioned seems to suggest wych units have a better invulnerable save (dodge) probably at 4+

Haywire Blasters are now going to be our best anti-vehicle weapons causing 3 mortals on a 4+ to vehicles

Power from Pain is different than I expected, I like that pain tokens are back but the lack of "see all the battle shock forcing this army can do" makes me think they tried to over correct for the ability or they wanted that to be a "surprise", I also enjoy that it effects both shooting and melee and not just melee meaning our kabalites can actually use it in the phase they are meant to

The detachment rules once again fall short, and this isn't just an us problem ... it's across all factions, it seems like the interesting detachment rules are saved for the many flavors of space marine ... and xenos (minus the big bad this addition the Tyrannids) get afterthought detachment abilities
The stratagem is ok, I'd be willing to pay 1 CP to only need to use 1 pain token to effect 3 units (I know they will at best be mediocre, but use this on lelith + archon + Urien (if he exists) could prove to be at least darkly amusing) ... ... ... however the wording on this seems to suggest our HQs can't join units ... but the transports still having the 6/11 capacity suggest otherwise
Biggest bonus of all: WE ARE NO LONGER FORCED TO BE 3 INCOMPLETE ARMIES!!!
Speculation:
Wracks will have some for of "generate token by holding objective at start of your command phase" like other armies with tokens/dice seem to have
Rerolls (that are supposed to be rare this edition) seem to be pretty common