Friday, March 4, 2011

I Have Cast the Runes And I See Potential

I have been reading the runes so to speak lately. I think it has a lot to do with my break from the Dark Eldar and going back to my Craftworlders. I recently saw a play test codex leaked out into the blog sphere and forums. You would be correct in guessing its the impending Grey Knights codex which should theoretically be hitting stores in April and pre release copies are probably making their way to stores now in the infamous GW Black boxes.
I have seen this codex in its raw form. Having seen these things in the past, while working for GW, I can say that changes may be pretty minimal. I have seen some pretty nasty things in it as well. 2 wound Terminators with the potential to have FNP. A monstrous creature called a Dread Knight which is armed with force weapons. Everything in this codex, with a scant few exceptions is psychic. People are dousing their collective drawers, despite the high points costs on everything, because of how powerful the models are.
They are powerful. They are all psykers. Many Eldar players will cry foul when they read about the psychic capabilities of the army. This apparent strength of the army though is its main weakness when facing the forces of the Craftworlds. Even the Dark Kin have a big advantage. Worry not for the psychic superiority of the Eldar will stymy the Grey Knights more than any other force. Runes of Warding will be standard issue. They should be already, but some internet and tournament “experts” say you don't need them. I say any regular reader knows my stance on the subject.
The followers of the Ordo Malleus seemed convinced that this codex will be the end all beat all, the pinnacle of power armor perfection. In a way it is. I see it as hope though. Hope for the Eldar. I also see it as a terrible foreboding. A taste of evil is also it. I am sorry to disappoint if you think this was going to be a Grey Knight rant or preview I will leave that to Inquisitor Lord Vogrin over at DFG. This is more of what I see in the future for the Eldar and 2 of our mortal enemies. The Mon-keigh are a trifling compared to whats down the road. I speak of course about the Ygnir and The Primordial annihilator. Commonly known as the Necrons and Chaos.
Whether you believe in codex creep or not The Eldar and Chaos Marine Codex’s are going to be the last or next to last pair of codex’s. With the trends and rules we see in each consecutive codex we can see a picture emerge for our favorite codex. You have a two edged advantage thanks to this. Firstly you have rules that were developed, theoretically, with the codex’s behind it in mind. So you have some advantages in weapons and rules that work against the previous codex’s. You also have some refinements and nerfing though, which seems to be more prevalent in non imperial codex’s. You can argue the fact all you want, its still true. The second real advantage you have is that the system itself has aged to the point that you are comfortable with the rules and really only have to deal with semantics when the codex comes out and is then FAQed. The counter point to this is of course people are use to their codex's by this point and have a refined army list. That is usually not ready to deal with the new force so chalk up another advantage.
The point I am trying to make is that the Eldar Codex when it comes out will be nasty. More so I am worried about how nasty the Chaos Marines will get. That said I am also worried GW may nerf the hell out of both of them. I am leaning towards nastiness though. I also see people getting blind sided by the Necrons. I think one of the main disadvantages of the army are the “we'll be back” rules. People spent so much time and effort trying to understand those and doing them wrong, they paid very little attention to the unit rules and tactics involved. They also ignored adapting the tactics to 5th edition. I honestly believe the impending Necron codex will be the gunman on the grassy knoll metaphorically speaking. It will be a total revamp like the Dark Eldar were. People will be caught off guard. I know I am stating the obvious to some, but I honestly think the Xenos releases from here on in are going to be nasty. There has been to much outcry for them not to be.
The Grey Knights do not worry me. They should not worry you either. So put them out of your mind. The forums and blogs will light up with clamor for the new power armored savages. They are a footnote. SO treat them as such. Lay waste to them.
As a side note I would like to applaud CSVinton of Dark Future Games. He recently rid himself of his Salamanders. I support you in your decision to rid yourself of power armor.

Next time I am going to discuss the second Mission in the “Test Of Khaine” tournament on March 19th at Evolution Games in Lansing Michigan.
I also want to touch on the concept of the Footdar army. You can make them work very well. You just need a good plan and the right strategy.

Until then....


Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!

3 comments:

  1. I also foresee your point of GK being power beasts and I hope the Imperial opposition becomes more powerful for the game to be interesting then it is now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know, the DE codex is good, but obvious steps were taken to avoid stepping on SM/Imperial toes. I mean no double lances in ten man squads sure.... but you can't trade the lance for a second blaster???? Just one of many examples.If the rules matched the models you'd see heaps of them on the table, but they are as rare as when their rules where batshit boring if still quite good.

    GWS wants 75% of 40k players to be marines, it makes marketing and releases easy, thats why every second release is practically marines. They could probably have updated almost every army if they only had one marine codex (not incl CSM obviously).

    GWS seems totally unprepared to actually make alternative choices that are as fun and easy to play as marines so the player base can actually choose an army.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I do agree GW's marketing is mostly geared towards Space Marines and Imperial Guard. The roots of the game are in those armies. I still don't know why they need so may Space Marine codex. Did you know that there are, collectively, more Space Marine codex's as there are xenos codex's If you drop grey knights its even. thats not including Imperial guard and Witch Hunters. You have Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Orks, Tyranids and Daemons. Chaos Marines are on the fence but we can include them. SO thats 7 including chaos. There are 6 Space Marine Codexs. Add in the Witch Hunters and Imperial guard and the forces of the imperium out number by one.
    Its so boring going to a tournament and playing nothing but power armor and gun lines of imp guard

    ReplyDelete