Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K – Are Aeldari, AdMech, T’au, Knights & Death Guard Any Good?
This week we get to talk about 5 new armies and my thoughts on them – including 2 of my evil nemesis’s! Let’s dive into Aeldari, AdMech, T’au, Knights & Death Guard!
Overall there is some interesting stuff with a few bits of worry depending on how mean the rest of the army actually is. Or how good it is. Or how much it all costs. There are a lot of questions to ask when looking at this stuff and it feels like we only got a quick glimpse of info which makes it hard to really figure out if any particular army is good or not.
Aeldari
Let’s start out of order with the biggest worry shown in how the Aeldari look a bit bonkers with their rule. We have versions of Strands of Fate in other games right now (AoS Tzeentch, Sisters) but by far this one appears to be the most bonkers. Here you have a chance to roll 20+ successes. In a game where a 4+ is extremely important it’s very hard to truly judge how broken something could be. Of course the other side of this is the whole idea that the game has really shifted to 4+ being much better than 1-3 in almost every where.
This leads to the idea that if Aeldari are filled with a ton of tough 4+ inv save models it is going to be a rough time when the player rolls 10+, 4+ dice rolls and can bank a ton of damage on say something like the Avatar or some other super tough thing. There isn’t any real information if this can only be done once but as the game currently is described, you could use all those fate dice right away. I won’t say how many turns of frustration I have had watching an Aeldari player be like – “naw man I don’t need to roll those saves I’ll burn these 3 dice.”
On top of this the Farseer being able to convert your dice to a roll of a 6 also seems a bit more absurd when reviewing this. Then of course he can give that unit a -1 to wound as well. It makes me think we are going to see WraithKnights going ham as they run around ignore saves, being tough to remove, and then kicking you in the no-no spot. Beyond that, the guns seem pretty bonkers too and again – all of this is dependent on if the army’s units are too cheap. If there isn’t a ton of Aeldari on the table it is less of a worry as you can easily swarm and push the OC values to the moon. Well just have to wait and see on the Index/Points.
Adeptus Mechanicus
From there we have Ad-Mech which is an army I have a lot of love on its design, but a ton of hate on how it plays. There are too many games I have played where the game just feels like a chore as wounds pour over you like some kind of hate filled fountain. But – the army looks cool as hell so it is a very hard thing for me to digest at times. Rules-wise the army feels alright with some simplified Doctrina Imperatives that feel easy enough to remember. There were too many games where I had questions on what are you doing and why? What Nintendo Cartridge did you plug in to activate all these rules for your army again? Are you really that into robots?
Rad-Bombardment also feels interesting but maybe not that exciting in the long run. Yes you can throw Mortal wounds all over the place but if the army can’t really engage well it won’t matter in the end. A few mortal wounds here and there are not nearly as exciting when you can have your leaders join fat units and have a ton of “options” to take the RAD burn. Sure MSU will be scared a bit but I expect the MSU style armies to have a lot of ways to either heal options or just not care about a few mortal wounds.
Unit wise Cawl looks like a badass. Of course being a Monster means he will be left a bit more open if he isn’t around units. We’ll have to see how rough it ends up being for units that can’t join up and still act as a Character. I love the Canticles though and this whole start of the battle round pick a rule. These sorts of things are great as you can have some nice control in a game and create some unique scenarios where you have to be smart about your picks. The stratagems they have are both good and I hope we see more like those for each of those armies – very distinct, powerful, and easy to “explain” when playing.
T’au Empire
Next up we have T’au Empire, and wow – they have shifted. I can see a big push to remove some of the “issues” they have always had with Drones and how they interact. This is a big change and I think a much more needed one as it will help alleviate some of the need to get a ton of weird little jerks for the army. The basic change is now Drones are not units and are upgrades to the unit with specific abilities. This is much cleaner design and feels a heck of a lot more elegant.
Oh and another big thing in there is the talk about how this is the first example of a T’au Detachment. This is huge as it gives a bit more push towards each army having multiple detachment options right out the gate. This way it would let you create more “unique” style subfaction builds but all within the confines of a two page set of rules. I hope there are a ton more with things like the Legions represented and other game play options. We’ll just have to wait and see. The T’au one shown seems simple enough with a more patient style hunter involved with the rules of getting better turn 3+. I expect the other one to be a Farsight style build with a much more aggressive set of options for turn 1-3. Most of the time the more aggressive option is better so let’s wait and see.
The T’au overall rule seems neat with a very elegant system of Observing and Guiding your enemy. I like how the Guiding unit doesn’t lose the ability to shoot and there is a lot of emphasis of being able to see the enemy. This is pretty cool and hopefully it will allow a lot more elegant style of play where you are planning all your helpers out as you being your shooting phase.
Speaking of shooting those guns look bonkers too. Some of the damage output appears to be pretty rough and while they are not wounding some vehicles on 2’s they are wrecking stuff pretty good when they connect. T’au Empire murder hobos are going to come to steal all your candy.
Imperial Knights
Next up we have Imperial Knights and a much nicer method of Chivalry than what we had to deal with before. I think the case of having all the rules being in a simple little box will be helpful. I won’t go into the many times my eyes glazed over when they explained the auras, exploding auras, and other nonsense as they shot me with their weapons. My only big concern in all of this is the amount of CP they seem to be able to get but I get the feeling it will be hard to activate this quickly.
The other big concern of course is how quickly you can get Honoured and have all your army get a 5+ Feel No Pain. This could be the biggest factor especially if the army of Armigers is the way to go or there is some other method to activate that honor button and go super.
We got to see some Knights stats as well with the Baby Knights getting to toughness 10 and the bigger knight sitting at toughness 12. It is pretty interesting in that a lot of stuff will just be wounding them on 5’s. Again we are really waiting to see how much they all cost and how many are on the tabletop. The scary thing in this is the Armigers have an OC of 8 which feels like a lot especially when you have 1-3 of them ganging up on an objective.
Oh and how scary is Canis looking with all his attacks smacking you on a 2+. The ability to score exploding hits on a 5+ is pretty scary too especially with the 2d6 blast just amping out a ton of shots. There are going to be those games where you roll like 6 hits and explode out to 8+ hits. Oh and of course he can 0 out a stratagem and you can reuse one you already used on him. Seems like he is set up to be one of those “needed” characters for the army like a lot of the other groups have.
Oh and that Harpoon seems bonkers hitting on a 2+ and causing Critical Wounds on things on a 4+. Man it is going to Skewer another knight and wreck its day. The Battle Cannon is also interesting in having Rapid fire at 36” – causing a ton more hits on top of being blast. It is an interesting set up and dependent on if those 2+ saves are going to be showing up a ton now with them new Terminators.
Both stratagems are interesting too in the idea of the Trophy Claim being a one use if you don’t get to kill the unit. I like it as it feels fluffy and hope we see some others like this. It is the same with Shoulder the Burden that allows you to “upgrade” a knight mid battle too. It will be interesting if we see more of them.
Death Guard
Finally we have the army I should be excited about – the Death Guard. This was a pretty big let down as it felt like they lost a powerful bit of rules and got extremely slow. But let’s start with what I liked about the showcase. The Spread the Sickness rule feels pretty fluffy to how the army should work. I do wish once you infected it – it would always stay infected. This would let it be controlled by someone else but still give them the tummy problems. I still do like the idea of spreading your gross all over – even though you army feels too slow to get there.
This preview feels like it left a lot on the table to be looked at. Without a ton of the other unit rules it’s less exciting and the whole movement of the terminators leaves a lot to be desired. Isn’t the GW buildings 5 inches in height and doesn’t that mean the Terminators can’t “scale” a floor without advancing. 4 inches really just doesn’t feel enough to justify getting “tougher” and losing the -1d ability they used to have.
Also the whole -1 toughness feels less exciting too just due to the nature of so many things getting tougher. When you are always wounding on 5’s how is that helping you out? I get the feeling CP is going to be spent on these guys to teleport closer as the game rumbles on. I also really wish the Plague Wind ability of the Plaguecaster was an 18” range spell. The negatives to movement are good but having it sit at 12” still means that unit probably charges you. We don’t know what units he can join into so will have to wait and see.
The Mortar though seems alright as a model Battleshock option. If there are more options to hit leadership and ways to spook things this might be a powerful option in all Death Guard armies. We don’t know what Entropic Cannons do, so we may have to go back to doing flamers on the side of these gross little tanks.
Finally the stratagem seems alright too as you can start to get some fun sustained hit options near grossed out objectives. I wonder if there are ways to skew your Critical hit score to start to have better exploding options in DG. This army is looking so slow so it better be able to survive the counter shooting and punch back rough. I just feel we are missing a ton of information to really get how this army feels other than it just feels way to slow.
Next week we got Chaos Knights so expect me to be a very excited Goatboy as that is the other current “favorite” army of mine right now. I hope we see Thousand Sons as well as we inch closer and closer to a full release of good times and monsters on the tabletop.
Which of these 5 is your favorite?
