Happy Holiday's from Team Ettin!
Warhammer Community has been giving more gifts than Papa Nurgle the past couple of weeks, except instead of being "gifts" in the Nurgley pox-ridden sense, these gifts are in the form of glimpses into the future! New rules for Adeptus Custodes, Genestealer Cults, and Grand Tournament 2022 have graced our eyes, and Team Ettin is stoked to give you our opinions on the changes to come.
Let's dive in and introduce the Holiday's best round table:
Chad "Papa Clause" Stubblefield
Ryan "Admech Did Nothing Wrong" Young
Kevin "Lightning Locks" McC.
Brandon "The Beard" Smith
Brian "When's the Deadline for List Submission?" Rowe
First off, how's everyone doing and what hobby projects or events do you have coming up?
Ryan: Building up my GSC and trying to adjust to the new points for AdMech
Chad: I'm great! I'm currently working on getting Craftworlds painted up to soup into my Harlequins! As far as events go I'm currently in a league at Ettin but have no plans to attend any more events outside of RTTs until after LVO.
Kevin: After the Austin Open, I’ve been in recovery mode. Since then, we’ve seen a number of encouraging changes to a couple of armies along with insights as to what next year will look like in terms of new Missions and Secondaries. Which is pretty exciting to me and I’m eager to dive in here.
Other than that, I’ve been doing some concept work for a couple of different things. My main focus is finding time to paint, but things are extremely busy on the “life” side of the equation.
Brandon: Right now I'm getting my custodes together and painted so I will, hopefully, have everything I will need for the new codex.
Brian: I’m stoked on building up my Deathwatch force and getting together a few spicy lists for our Ettin league games as well as the upcoming monthly RTT.
Let's start with Genestealer Cults. What do you think of the new rules, like Crossfire, that have been previewed so far?
Kevin: Thematic! My partner has actually owned GSC for awhile, but fell more-or-less out of love with them. They just didn’t seem to really do much. Kind of one of those cool concepts that just couldn’t stick the landing on its own when 9th came around. That being said, they give some wonderful tools to the Forces of the Hive Mind lists and I’m always for that.
I think Crossfire really got my interest renewed here. I’d argue that my excitement gave pause to my partner, who has been considering letting the GSC go to clear up some space. This particular spoiler leans into what 9th has done fairly well with so far - making the army feel unique. And the 1CP Stratagem to allow a unit to jump out and treat something as already having a Crossfire Marker is going to be money.
Brian: Crossfire seems very interesting and honestly I’m just excited to see there are more and more reasons for people to play new armies. I’m thrilled to have more Xenos coming up so I can actually get my re-roll 1’s to wound in melee for once!
Ryan: I really like the Crossfire rule, very thematic and potentially powerful, depending on what models gain the ability. Hopefully this is on Ridgerunners, Jackals and the troops choices. Exposed is also a potentially strong ability, +1 to wound in an army with generally str 3 or 4 guns on troops is great. Combine the two abilities and getting +1 to hit and +1 to wound is huge for a typically horde style army.
What are you hoping to see from Codex: Genestealer Cults?
Chad: Flavor. Games Workshop has been hitting homerun after homerun in making armies play well AND feel flavorful in their rules. Units feel unique in 9th edition and aren't the days of old 8th edition units who are all about rinsing and repeating the same buffs over and over. My one hope for the Genestealer Cults codex is to feel those Guerilla tactics in the rules without them being overtly oppresive.
Ryan: Very thematic play style. I want a lot of movement shenanigans and some adequate shooting. A little more durability so they don’t fold to bolster fire will be great. I’ll be interested to see how the heavy weapons, mining laser, rock saw, etc. come through.
Kevin: I hate to say that I’m of the opinion that good ol’ GW might have already let the cat out of the bag here. Crossfire is a fairly dramatic twist and a thematic one at that. It’s a mechanic that will dictate how the army is piloted - though that depends on just how many units have the Crossfire keyword.
What I would like to see is the ability to continue to team up with the greater forces of the Hive Mind. However, as we’ve seen, most of the armies who have crossed that 9th edition rubicon often lose something when they’re “souped” together. Sometimes the benefits outweigh that which is lost, but in this case I would be more inclined for GSC not to lose something.
How do you feel about the new Custodes rules, Sisters of Silence as a troop choice and Ka'Tah stances?
Brandon: This is what I really came here to talk about. When I first started playing about a year ago, I started on custodes. The two main things that I noticed off the bat that needed improvement was: the damage output and cheap troop choices. Assuming that the sisters of silence stats stay the same, going from our cheapest troop option being a whopping 135 points to less than half is insane. That alone will bring in the ability to have throw-away units to do actions, which as we know is a big part of being able to play the game. We will be able to banners on T1 while the rest of the army does what is needed (killing the xenos and chaos threats), Rod on turns that we need to have units doing other things (like killing daemons), and they can still plink wounds off when they aren't being action monkeys. And let us not forget that even in the games that we won't need to do actions the sisters will likely still have the ability to reap havoc on an enemy's psychic force. You will never find more joy than bringing a unit of sisters into a Thousand Sons army just to tell them that they cannot smite due to the fact that the sisters are the closest visible unit and that they aren't affected by powers.
From what we have seen so far, the Ka'Tah's have been filling the issues we have had with the army for a while. For starters, in order to advance and do anything we would have to take an answered prayer to The Emperor. But now with the new Calistus Ka'Tah, we can at least advance and shoot for a couple turns (with the accompanying shield host). This doesn't solve all of the issues, but it's a big start. Then we have the Dacatarai Ka'Tah. how many times have people found out that we cannot wipe large hordes, so they just surround us with big blobs of nonsense? Well no more! With the Dacatari, they won't be able to get deep into us with the pile in and consolidation, seeing as most units will be moving a mere 1". on top of that, once it comes to our turn, we will be able to get extra attacks in to clear the horde. Assuming there are 5-6 shield hosts, I'm on my toes waiting for the rest of the Ka'tah's to be shown, along with the shield hosts that correspond to them.
Chad: I almost feel like Sisters as a troop choice could've been a Balance Dataslate update. I would've loved to have seen what they could do with their current rules but Sisters as troops at the Games Workshop Austin event. This is a drastic change in an otherwise hyper-elite army, and is going to offer some unique list-building options.
As far as Ka'Tah stances i'm elated. Again the ceiling and fluff are mutually elevated. I'm a big fan of the stances that have been shown with my favorite being the stance that offers a reduction to your opponents pile-in and consolidate or +1 ATK/DMG 1 on your infantry. I think anytime you can limit movement or how many models can fight then you can really pull some shenanigans. Also knowing your matchup and getting to tech against -1 DMG armies, like Death Guard, seems very powerful. When all your damage 2 weapons would normally get reduced and you're ready to krump then you can do the +1 ATK portion and really beat up on them. All in all I'm a huge fan of what I've seen.
Brian: Custodes have needed a boost in the overall playability of the game and more troop options helps with that. (Plus kung-fu! I’m sold!)
Kevin: Conceptually, I have always liked the Custodian Guard. As a Sisters of Battle player, I think the Sisters of Silence are just cooler. There are definitely some much needed changes already making a showing. Shuffling around the Sister of Silence units to fit into specific battlefield roles, for one. Prosecutors being Troops, for me, is a huge win. This means the Custodian Guard now have a viable, cheaper choice for Objective Secured. There’s also the changes to several of the new Secondaries coming in 2022… Where cheap, 5-man (or woman as the case may be) units can make a real impact.
Other than that, I’m not really impressed by the Ka’Tah Stances. Yes, they do work “better” than the Necron Protocols, as every Custodian will gain the benefit of the current Stance, but ultimately this feels… Lazy? I’m certain that is a fairly pessimistic viewpoint, I’ll chalk it up to being vicariously bitter that my partner’s Protocols are just not as good or dynamic and overall tend to have little impact on the game as a whole.
What else do you expect to see in Codex: Adeptus Custodes?
Brandon: I'm already super happy to see the improvements that have come to the army. I don't believe I can ask for much more. although if The Emperor would hear my prayers, I would ask for at least +1 to the attack characteristics army wide, and -1 ap to the hurricane bolters. But even if I don't get everything I ask for, I still believe the custodes to be a force to be reckoned with once the codex drops.
Kevin: Based on what we are seein’, the Mortal Wound protection they very desperately need will be locked to a specific Shield Host. Which means that’ll end up being the go-to. Points wise I don’t imagine there to be anything dramatically different. They’re an elite army. What I will say is this. Being an elite army, I feel it would be worth exploring the possibility of their potency being reflected in other ways. Let’s consider them counting as more than a single model while on an Objective, or even for Secondaries (I’m looking at you 2022 Engage and RND). This might be a bit much, but I definitely think it stands up against the ease at which other armies can access swarms of MSU.
Chad: I expect a points drop even if it is slight, as well as a slight reduction in unit durability. They may shift some of these more durable aspects of the army into stratagems rather than being built into the units. I'm hoping extra attacks are built into the units statlines and that they get a reasonable secondary. Nomatter how good an armies codex may be it's stock goes up substantially if it has a secondary that is good/great. Games Workshop has shown to repeat Secondaries under different names with similar armies. The most likely port over is Stubborn Defiance from the Dark Angels codex. Hopefully we don't get the same old "issue a challenge" secondary that Blood Angels & Space Wolves already have.
Last off how do you feel about the upcoming changes to mission primaries as well as the secondary changes that have leaked from the Games Workshop Invitational?
Chad: Big fan of these changes so far. For anyone who isn't aware Grand Tournament Pack 2022 will feature missions that have Primary scores that now only score in intervals of 4 instead of 5. On top of this, Mission Specific Secondaries are gone and have been replaced by another bonus primary score that rewards you up to 3 points for completing these "sub-goals" every battle round. Goonhammer has reported on which Secondaries have changed and I'm going to highlight my favorite and least favorite changes.
For my favorite change we have the new No Prisoners, which now rewards you bonus points for reaching certain thresholds of wounds killed. This makes No Prisoners slightly more viable as a pick if you're struggling to find that 3rd secondary. My least favorite change is the new version of ROD, Retrieve Nachmund Data. They took a wildly easy secondary out back and shot it in the head for some armies. I would've liked for the change to be similar to Engages change and check model count at 3 or more to perform the action. But as it sits even the standard 5 model Infantry squad for most armies are taking a risk when they pick this Secondary as it has you roll a die and roll below the model count of the unit attempting the action or else it fails. You get to subtract 1 on the die roll if it is a troop slot attempting the action, but i'm still unimpressed.
Brian: I think it will obviously lower overall scores but perhaps lend itself to closer games. It’s hard to tell at this stage before everyone unveils whatever new crazy lists they have, but again I’m excited for a refresh and the overall health of the game. Let’s see where it goes from here with the help of quarterly balance updates. Either way, roll on friends!
Brandon: With two of the new missions being shown, Ettin Games decided to integrate them into their most recent RTT. After playing the missions it felt like there was a better balance... to one of the missions. Even though it is a fresh change on a beloved mission, "Secure Missing Artefacts" still feels rather "free" even with your opponent choosing the priority objective.
Now on the other hand, I had the chance to play "Recover the Relics" against a knights player. This brought an interesting turn on the game from the knights side. Obviously I had more units on the bord than the knights player, so this gave them the advantage on primary. But at the same time, you have to realize that as it stands currently, knights don't have a ton of good secondaries. So instead of focusing on the second half of the primary I put all of my effort into the secondaries. All of that being said, I believe these "additional primaries" will help certain armies sure up points where they would normally have difficulty.
Ryan: I really like the spoiled changes to the Mission Pack. More dynamic and harder to accomplish secondaries will make some of the lesser used ones more viable. I’m worried about the missions were kill points get VP as some armies, Knights and Custodes specifically run low model counts that are hard to kill.
Kevin: This is one of those things I’ve been keeping a closer eye on than I usually would. That being said, I’m still contemplating what changes here for me as a Chaos Knight player. Nevertheless, these changes will make an impact. Mission scoring bumping down to 4, 8, 12 with what I can only describe as a built-in secondary is very interesting to me. Particularly because this forces a lot of armies (mine included) to take a step back and really look at their options. Playing Chaos Knights, there were a few missions where the Mission Secondary was a viable pick. Now I don’t have that. Which means, like most of those who haven’t made the transition to 9th yet, we’re likely going to get further “locked” into some bad choices. Ultimately though, I’ve got the feeling that we’re going to be seeing a lot more interaction between armies, particularly if you’re wanting to snag that extra 3VP in Primary.
Now, I say that, but I haven’t yet experienced these new Secondaries first hand. Which I think is important. We’re all in the same boat here, more-or-less. And there are a few more Secondaries that definitely become better picks. No Prisoners is an example of that. While Bring it Down is also more viable for me to take, as it didn’t change anything in terms of what others were already scoring against me, but now 10 wound vehicles net me a 2VP bounty. Those are always two questions I generally ask depending on what my opponent is playing - how many points of this or that does your army give up? And I think that’ll inform a lot of players when it comes to list building as well. All that to say, I’m excited to see more of the Missions and lay eyes on the actual text for the new Secondaries.
Well that wraps things up for now! Thank you all for joining Team Ettin for another round table! We will be releasing new articles every week as well as starting up a Podcast in January. If you like what you see make sure you leave a comment and as always you can find dice, wargaming and hobbying items right here on the website with a pickup or shipping option!
From all of us here at Team Ettin: Happy Holidays & Happy Gaming!
