Warhammer 40k is in a rough spot right now. The launch of 10th Edition, which in my opinion, has felt rushed and forced, ha largely been plagued with bugs, errors, poor rules writing, and horrific imbalances. In fact, the launch of 10th Ed looks a LOT like the launch of many video game flops such as No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk.
Craftworld, Imperial Knights, Custodes, and GSC abruptly started causing quite a stir, as these armies dominated top tables everywhere. Let’s take a brief look at why each army was so strong at edition launch.
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Craftworld
We don’t need to harp on it any longer. Fate Dice coupled with Dev Wounds and cheap units makes eldar inherently more powerful. When I’m playing 40k, but you are playing Sigmar, your mortal wound output is going to win almost every time. I’ve said it at least 100 times. Mortal Wounds are a shit mechanic, and lazy rules writing. If they HAVE to be in 40k, they should be reserved for things that feel powerful or special, not a mechanic to be spammed by smooth-brain meta-hoppers looking to get their brand new triple-wraith knight list on the table so they can brag to their buddies that they’re good at the game. (Newsflash: Most of them aren’t)
In addition to this, many eldar units have abilities that allow interaction on their opponent’s turn, giving many craftworld players effectively 1.5 turns to my 1. Which isn’t inherently bad, but with as cheap as units are, and the constant spamming of dev wounds things like wraithguard can really shine because players can almost ALWAYS get 2 shooting phases out of a unit. (Recently hit a “Gotcha” with that. was not a happy man.)
The biggest issue here is that there is just too much a player HAS to remember in order to play against eldar, and there HAS to be a lot of communication in that game. This isn’t bad per se, but can lead to some shitty experiences should a player forget to ask a question, etc.
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Imperial Knights
Now I have not gotten the blessing of playing against this, but without taking a deep dive I can guess that having an army of t12+ and towering is pretty shitty. If you don’t have tools in your index to deal with it, you may as well shake your opponent’s hand and go get a beer. Personally I’ve never been a fan of Knights as a standalone codex/army. Having that low of a model count seems like it is incredibly tough to balance. Couple that with the fact that as the rules are written right now, you literally cannot hide, and it can be a painful experience.
If playing against knights is anything like playing against Wraith knights, I’d just as soon suck start a shotgun as I would put models across from it.
GSC
Now this one is interesting, as I know they score well, but you can kill their units easily. I actually play against them this week for my first game. My 37% (ish) win rate drukhari against a 70% (ish) win rate Army. Should be fun.
The issue with GSC, is that they have a theoretical infinite number of units/models. The way cult ambush works their battleline units will just be respawning every time you kill them, allowing them to constantly score points. Do I think the army is oppressive? Nah, its arguably just that some of their units are underpointed. Constantly respawning/summoning units? Seems like another Sigmar mechanic creeping into 40k
Custodes
Finally Custodes. I’ve not even thought about them, to be honest, but from what I understand they are incredibly hard to shift. I won’t pretend like I’ve read their index, and I’ll just assume that because they have the imperium keyword they will have a special rule for anything they need. I’ll play against them next week, I’m sure.
I’ve already written about the balance patch, which you can read about here.
Did it Work?
God no. We knew it wouldn’t. Tournament Organizers and experienced players have been begging GW to fix Devastating Wounds as a mechanic since the edition launched (some even earlier). In addition, Towering is a mess that makes high toughness units that are exceptionally big (knights), inherently more powerful than everything else.
I’ve not looked at lists (as you need a BCP subscription to do that), but I’d bet money that almost ALL of those eldar lists had 1 wraith knight still. the damn thing is 500 points, and I think its still in most lists! Turns out there is an issue with the rule, not the points cost of the unit (well…. maybe a bit of both)
Indirect units also got slapped with a points hike, and guess what? Marine players are still spamming desolators. Once again, not fixing the issue. (Just an example, not that they are, or aren’t, a strong faction)
I get it. GW wanted to make a small incremental change, rather than the heavy-handed “nerf it to oblivion” shit we are used to, BUT, Don’t nerf the armies. Just fix the rules. Fix Dev wounds to stop being mortal wounds (I suggest it just creates a wounds explode interaction instead). I also suggest taking away towering and either going back to 9th, or they BOTH benefit from obscuring. Those 2 changes go a long way to fixing what is broken in this game.
My buddies over at Stat Check put together this gorgeous table (Click the table to go to their site)
8 of the armies are in the “goldilocks zone”. That is the 45-55% win rate. Only a single army boasts 55% win rate, and also a single army boasts a 45% win rate. 14 armies sit below it, while 4 armies are above it. This is an absolute shit-show, and I have watched as long-time players stop playing 40k for games like MCP or AoS. I don’t know if other communities are suffering/struggling the way ours is, but it really shows how poorly written the indexes were.
Word on the street is that there is an FAQ/Errata coming late July. We’ll see. Tacoma is this weekend, and there’s a good chance GW is looking to use data from Tacoma as well before making/announcing big changes. Fix yo shit, James.
