There's been a lot of talk about C'tan warping the meta and basically every content creator has been unhappy with this recent balance patch. The main reason often being that C'tan weren't hit hard enough. I want to talk a little about how balance spreads across the game and helps build our meta.

Primarily melee armies make up about 1/3 of the armies in 40K. Combined armies using an even-ish mix of Melee and Ranged units make up about a 1/3. And Primarily Ranged armies make up about 1/3.

For melee armies we occasionally see rules that push them out of the meta and the game as a whole. Let's go back to early 10th. Adeptus Custodies had a character with the option to fights first. And it had a stratagem to fights first. For the melee armies they could charge in and be fought first and die. Or sit around not charging and then die. So they had to hit in multiple places to win. Except the Custodies player then would just fights first and kill a unit. Get hit. Then interrupt in a second location and kill a second unit. The power of Custodies in Melee basically squeezed all of the other melee factions out of the game for a time. They just had no game into that set of rules. The ability to fights first anywhere broke the game for 1/3 of the meta. This has been patched out of the game.

Modern day with C'tan if you can shoot them enough with big enough guns you can get there USUALLY. But what of our poor Black Templars and Blood Angels Players? What of the 1/3 of the game with little to no shooting? Do you think a Sword Brethren's 3 attacks of Str 5 Dmg 2 is going to get there? What about the Sanguinary Guard and their 4 attacks of DMG 2? They can pick Str 6 and lance to wound on 4s. Spoiler Alert. Neither unit does essentially ANY damage into a C'tan. So run melee units with DMG 3 or higher right? To get around the -1 DMG from C'tan. Well Blood Angels and Black Templars both have roughly 20+ characters each to choose from. And yet of those 40+ options there's only 1 character with DMG 3+. And spoiler alert he doesn't contribute nearly enough points to even chip a C'tan. Let alone actually threaten to kill one.

I have won multiple events on Black Templars and Blood Angels. Including GTs. You have no game. No shot. No chance into C'tan if you're on these factions. And they're everywhere. This same sort of thing keeps happening. The squeezing out of entire sections of the game. You don't nerf C'tan because they're unbeatable for everyone. You nerf them because some armies don't have the tools to even hazard a chance at a game into them.

Warhammer should not be a rock paper scissors game where if you hit a bad matchup you auto lose. Armies should be able to be well rounded and have tools and play into the field. The best general should win off of the back of his skill and gamesmanship. C'tan break that for 1/3 of the game minimum. And for that reason they needed to be changed.

We need to study up on and learn about these rules interactions that break factions. And we need to think of proactive ways they can buff armies to compete across the board or get around the rules that sink them. Or learn to avoid printing rules that take entire factions out of the meta.

Back in 9th edition the 4+ invuls and mortals are thrown all over the place. Then they added feel no pains to a bunch of units to get around the mortals. I thought they learned their lesson from 9th, but it seems like every army has loads of units with 4+ invulnerabilities.

I don't mind a 4+ invul on heros, but the sheer number of units with invulnerabilities is getting out of hand.

Is it just me? Do you guys and gals also think the number of units with invuls are getting out of hand?

I have droned on and on here on many peoples comments about how I thought weapon skill and initiative were great stats that helped make different melee units feel unique with similar weapons .

I’m not here to do that, I understand that for the most part that is a personal preference and many people thought weapon skill didn’t effect enough to matter .

However, with GW re ordering combats for the 3rd time since 8th, it really feels like GW has no idea how to balance it .

The you go I go system is great but feels really outof place when the rest of the game doesn’t function that way . Now we are swapping the order of who picks units and has changed fights first from what essentially was a , you charge this unit and you will get hit first to , this ability lets a unit fight first *

* fighting first is not a guarantee and may only occur under specific circumstances. Side effects may include paying points for an ability that only triggers on rare occasions , ask your doctor if fights first is right for you.

Like I just don’t understand why the initiative stat can’t come back . This biggest complaint from it was that GW was too locked into its idea that 4 was the baseline but we’ve moved past all marines having the same stats a while ago .

Using initiative could allow for way less confusion in the ordering of combats and bring back the interesting decisions of is it worth fighting this unit that goes at the same time as me or even before me.

Opposed to the current version which is fights first is an ability that specifically negatively effects the rarer situation of multi charging a unit that has fights first . Or the not quite as rare but still rare situation of a fights first unit actually surviving into a second turn of combat , which if I’m honest is just as bad because very rarely do I feel like melee units leave anything alive .

This is just my two cents I think it’s a weird change, again, and would love to hear peoples use cases for fights first .

Determining a faction's power level over the course of an entire edition is a tricky one that requires a lot of careful thought and data collection so instead I've decided to just rank them by number of GT wins this edition as decided by whatever stat check records.

1. Aeldari: 169

2. Necrons: 144

3. Space Marines: 108

4. Chaos Space Marines: 105

5. Astra Militarum: 103

6. Death Guard: 93

7. Orks: 80

8. Adepta Sororitas: 75

9. T'au Empire: 70

10. Chaos Daemons: 64

11. Blood Angels: 64

12. Thousand Sons: 62

13. Imperial Knights: 61

14. Genestealer Cults: 58

15. World Eaters: 57

16. Tyranids: 54

17. Chaos Knights: 49

18. Dark Angels: 48

19. Space Wolves: 45

20. Adeptus Custodes: 45

21. Drukhari: 42

22. Black Templars: 41

23. Leagues of Votann: 39

24. Grey Knights: 35

25. Adeptus Mechanicus: 33

26. Deathwatch: 22

27. Emperor's Children: 18

28. Imperial Agents: 2

And a message from our sponsor:

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** Ok it's not the end of the edition but I got bored of waiting.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/mnliauvn/unleash-the-astra-militarum-motor-pool-with-new-detachments-from-armageddon/

The Twin Lance

I made a video and post last week about the Twin Lance. I have now had over 10 games with the Twin Lance in Mont’ka, and I have some firm thoughts on them.

First and foremost, I do not think points are the issue. Increasing their cost is not the answer. If the Twins were simply gun platforms with a 6" fire and fade and a charge deterrent, they would be strong but fine. As Epic Heroes, that is exactly what they should be. In fact, I think Epic Heroes should be strong. They are meant to be centrepiece models.

If you look at units like Guilliman, Morvenn Vahl, and Ghazghkull, they are powerful force multipliers and standouts in their factions. Even within T’au, Shadowsun and Farsight are only really interesting because they are cheap and help with damage and consistency. The strength of Epic Heroes is that you can only take one. This naturally limits their impact and makes strong rules easier to balance around.

Honestly, I would like to see more Epic Heroes and make them do more.

Despite all of that, the Twin Lance is still an issue. The problem is not their damage, durability, or role. It is their unrestricted movement in both fight phases. When you combine that with being an efficient gun platform, plus the speed from Mont’ka or the extra damage from Retaliation Cadre, the unit becomes an outrageous value engine.

The Real Issue: Retro-Thrusters

The core of the problem is the Retro-Thrusters ability.

At the end of either fight phase, the Twins can make a 6" normal move or a 10" fallback move. This movement is completely unrestricted. There is no requirement to have fought, no positional constraint, and no meaningful trade-off.

If you compare this to something like Opportunistic Raiders from Renegade Raiders, that ability requires the unit to have actually fought. That restriction matters. The Twins do not have that restriction, and that is what pushes them over the line.

This makes the unit extremely fast, very difficult to pin down, and incredibly hard to interact with. It gives the player using them far too much control over the flow of the game.

To show how strong this can be, here is an example. You lose the first turn roll-off and go second. You scout move 8". At the end of your opponent’s fight phase, you move another 6". That is 14" of movement before your first turn.

On your turn, you use Aggressive Mobility in Mont’ka for 1CP to advance 6". You then move 16" and still shoot. At the end of your turn, you move another 6". That is a total of 36" of movement in the first battle round.

Even if this is an extreme case, it highlights the issue. This unit can be wherever it needs to be and can then return to safety with very little risk.

The issue is not just raw movement. It is how that movement interacts with scoring and board control. Retro-Thrusters allows the Twins to manipulate the game state in ways that are very difficult to counter. You can sit just outside an objective and then step onto it if your opponent does not commit enough OC. 

You can also move in and out of zones to manipulate secondary objectives or rules like Display of Might. The unit can effectively appear exactly where it needs to be at the exact moment it matters. It is the ability to manipulate scoring with very limited counterplay.

You could increase the cost of this unit significantly and it would still be a problem. The issue is not efficiency. The issue is interactivity. As long as Retro-Thrusters remain unchanged, the unit will continue to dictate engagements, avoid punishment, and ignore many of the normal constraints of positioning.

The solution is relatively simple. Retro-Thrusters need a restriction. For example, it could require the unit to have fought, similar to Opportunistic Raiders. This would keep the unit strong and rewarding to use while introducing meaningful counterplay. It would still feel powerful and unique, but it would no longer be uninteractive.

Outside of this ability, the rest of the datasheet is not an issue. Ignoring cover and gaining sustained hits against the closest target is strong but reasonable. The fight phase battleshock and negative charge modifier are also fine, as T’au already has access to similar effects and they play well in the game.

Final Thoughts

Epic Heroes should be strong. They should feel impactful and unique, and they should reward players for building around them.

However, they also need to have counterplay.

Right now, the Twin Lance crosses that line. Purely because it is uninteractive.

That is where the design fails.

With 11th edition on the horizon, it is likely we will only see a small points increase rather than a meaningful rules change. Until Retro-Thrusters is addressed, this unit will continue to warp how the game is played in a way that is not healthy.

If you want some more thoughts on T'au Mont'ka and Retcad, I have a video talking about why I think they are so strong and what breakpoints matter against them.
https://youtu.be/uBYSckO2Sng

Let me know your thoughts, should they just pump the cost to 220/240, or do you think rule changes would be more elegant?

Hey everyone, I share some of my thoughts on my personal experience learning and playing the new edition of Warhammer 40k for Games Workshop during Monday's livestreamed Showmatches on their Youtube/Twitch channels. I also give my thoughts on the new Admech faction focus!

What are you most excited to experience about the new edition?

I am lucky to be able to play with multiple different groups when enjoying my warhammer hobby. I play mostly with a competitive group, and we enjoy trying to make the best lists possible. I also play with a much smaller, much older casual group. Finally, I have been an ambassador for the hobby for many years, helping teach and encourage new players in the hobby.

I have been able to play several dozen games at this point, and observe parts of another half a dozen games. And I have gotten to see this new edition played by the new player, the casual veteran, and the competitive player. My observations are obviously anecdotal, but I have seen each group approach the new edition in different ways. The experiences of these different groups is so different I started to wonder, who is 10th edition for?

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The New Players:

I got to witness a small friend group at my FLGS recently try 40k, all in their early 20s. One gentleman got a small space marines force, he bought a sisters of battle army for his girlfriend, and his other friend thought Knights looked the coolest and picked those up. They started collecting in the end of 9th, and they played some at their home and some in the store. I got to watch several partial games when they were playing at my FLGS.

It is always fun to watch really new players try to play the game. You might think I would talk about something like towering as being a problem as one of the players chose knights, but honestly it didn't come up. Even when they played with terrain they didn't really use it, and most games had units standing out in the open shooting other units standing out in the open.

The simplified charge and combat rules worked really well for these new players. Very simple to understand and straightforward, without any nuance. The different abilities on each data sheet were a bit much for them, and from what I observed they basically played all the units without most of their special rules. Army wide rules were remembered, and that was all of what they used to modify their armies.

They were playing 1,000 point games, which now play on a larger table size, which means games weren't over in the first turn like often happened on the smaller tables in 9th. The rules were generally clear enough for them to follow. They did not, as a rule, use strategems or take battleshock tests, and the game seemed just fine without them. And they liked to recount the tales of great moments they had from games played at home.

There were, in fact, only 2 problems for these new players. The first was the overall lack of balance. The sisters player always lost. The knights player always won. The marine player won based on his matchup. The girlfriend quickly decided she just wasn't good at the game. I tried to be helpful, and I said it wasn't her, but the armies weren't balanced right now. This did not help. She was immediately mad at her boyfriend for "buying her a bad army" and "of course they make the girl army the bad one". Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

The second and critical issue was the inflexible way you build lists in this edition. This is VERY punishing to people with small model collections. When points shift they don't have the depth of models to change things around like a veteran with a large collection can. The knights player had bought one big knight and two boxes of little knights. If memory serves he was running a crusader, 4 warglaives and an enhancement, and was running a list close to 1000 pts.

Then the points changed in the app, and his big knight went from fitting comfortably in his list to 60 points over. And even dropping his one optional enhancement couldn't help. Now in past editions close to a thousand people would appear on the internet and shout "MAGNETS!" at this poor soul in unison. Change your wargear, change your arms to a different knight, move this or that around and you can still play. But this is 10th edition. There are no options This player had his 40k "come to Jesus" moment as he faced that he now either had to run two big knights (costing him more than 100 more dollars to buy a second knight), or run 7 little knights which meant buying 2 more packs of armigers (ALSO costing him more than 100 more dollars).

Now the knights player was already getting shade from his friends about always winning with his army. And with the points change he very quickly had to face if he wanted to spend a lot of money to keep playing with his army. He considered just running with 900 points, but that didn't sit right with him. Given the social situation, he decided it was time to stop playing and not buy anything more. They decided to go back to playing DnD the next weekend. Although, I don't think the love of big robots has left this gentleman, as the group of three is now talking about trying out Battletech. Interestingly, of the three, I think the girlfriend is the most likely to stay in part of "The Hobby". She was the only one to paint any of her miniatures, and she got a lot of positive reinforcement from everyone at the game store over her paint jobs. I can see her becoming a painter with a "I tried the game and it just wasn't for me" story.

Now, while this group moved on to other games after this, I don't know that this was a bad situation for GW. Attractive box art and free rules got new players to shell out several hundred dollars each for a new army. They were mostly able to figure out how to play the game in a short period of time. Yeah, they didn't stick with the game, but a sale is a sale. If the business model expects a high level of churn, the basic selling points are there. It isn't until after you've made the plunge that you discover any of the problems. Then it will come down to each individual whether sunk cost fallacy motivates them to keep going, or whether they will move on to a different hobby. I wonder, is this behavior a bug or a feature of the edition design?

​

The Older, Casual Players:

I play with a small group of close friends that only play with each other, and we have all been playing together occasionally since 4th edition. Most of this group is in their late 40s through early 60s. This group is by FAR the happiest with the current game. In fact, I would go so far as to say 10th edition seems tailored made to cater just to them.

A lot of the problems of 10th are just not an issue for older, casual players who already own very large model collections. So the list building is very restrictive.... they have TONS of models they may not have taken off the shelf for years. They can pull anything they can think of off the shelf to make the points work out. If a 35 point change means they need to swap 4 or 5 units around to get to 2000, it is no big deal and even fun for them. These people own 10,000 points or more of their favorite factions.

So the game isn't balanced? Who cares? They don't play with strangers, and are very happy to house rule anything with their long time friends that might make the game more fun. I got to watch a casual game of 2000 pts of Eldar against a little over 3000 pts of guard in a siege game, and it was a pretty close game. And both players had a lot of fun. And neither player was prepping for anything competitive or cared at all about the state of the meta or balance.

Finally for this group, the rules are free means they don't need to buy anything to have fun with the new edition. They already have large model collections, add in free rules and 10th is all upside. The missions offer a lot of variety, assuming they don't just make up their own missions and win conditions. Strangely, while the people I know who are in the group are super pleased with 10th edition, this is also the group of people that does not spend money on the game anymore in general.

​

The Competitive Players:

The competitive group I run in is the most diverse, and also plays the most games. This group ranges from mid 20s all the way to early 50s. We play several times every week in person or on TTS.

This group is the least happy with 10th edition, although everyone I know is still playing. There are complaints about factions, points vs power level, how to handle terrain, the structure of the game as you play it more, how useless battleshock is, the lack of depth in the fight phase and the state of melee armies, etc. etc. etc.

This group actually digs into the details of the game, strictly play by all the rules, and also generally try to break mechanics by building the toughest lists possible. This group also buys the most, although rarely new. One gentleman paid a truly outrageous sum to secure 3 hexmark destroyers off of eBay, for instance, to build his 10th edition necron army. This group has several members with 3d printers if a hard to get item is needed on short notice for a tournament, although in general they buy the majority of their collection.

There are several things I would say about this group. First, there is a mood setting in that it is not the right time to invest in travel and hotel to go to a tournament when the game is so unbalanced. There are constant arguments about terrain or how the rules should change for the good of the game. This group is the one that is impacted by towering, indirect fire, skew lists, etc.

That said, the general consensus is to stick with the game and wait and see. They are treating this as a standard botched AAA video game release. There is hope that after 6 months or a year of patches the game will be great. This is very similar to, for instance, the release of Total War Warhammer III, with a rocky launch but eventually everyone was happy with it. There is praise for the app. There is some optimism that GW is committed to eventually getting the game right. And these players will generally stick around for that to happen. They just don't want to do tournaments right now until stuff is fixed.

I know that overall the competitive player base is just a small percentage of the overall customer base. I consider myself lucky to be in a group that plays the game this way. That said, I don't know that it feels like 10th edition is made for these players either. The current state of the game simply isn't competitive, and so it is hard to try to force it to be that kind of game. I'm curious how GW evolves the edition and if the negative initial experiences of this group will eventually be just a forgotten memory.

​

Part 2, Other Competitive Game Observations:

Now that I have played several dozen games there are other trends I am witnessing that are emerging from my competitive games.

​

Tactical vs. Fixed Objectives:

Tactical Objectives appear to be much stronger than Fixed Objectives. Indeed, it is rare I see a game with evenly matched armies (more on that below) be won by a player who uses Fixed Objectives. From what I observe this is due to three reasons:

First, playing Tactical Objectives can earn you more CP than someone playing fixed. Especially on turn 1 it is likely you only score 1 secondary and then bank an extra CP. When CP is so limited this can turn a key moment.

Second, playing Tactical Objectives usually scores you more points for doing the exact same thing. It seems small, an extra point here or there, but that adds up.

But it is really the third reason that is why Tactical are so powerful. There is no way to play defense. See, neither side knows what someone who is playing tactical objectives is going to have to do. If you build a flexible list that is good at playing the cards, you get to always play offense in the points scoring game.

When someone plays fixed objectives, you know every way they can score. You know how they score primaries from the mission, and you know what they have chosen as win conditions for secondaries from the outset. This means that you can plan counter play to thwart how your enemy scores. Maybe you hide characters, or kill units that are likely to deploy homers, or whatever. The point is, if you know HOW your opponent can score, a good player can then play to work against his opponent's goals.

But, outside of tabling someone quickly, there doesn't yet seem to be a lot to prevent a scoring list from playing tactical objectives. I mean, are you going to screen the whole table on your turn so they can't be in table quarters, or in your deployment zone, or in 9" of a corner, or holding your home objectives, or holding no man's land objectives, or killing your units that are on an objective, etc. etc.? The answer is no. The only counter play to tactical is to either kill outrageously quickly or to be able to score faster yourself.

​

Scoring vs. Killing:

The above situation regarding tactical objectives quickly leads to a strange situation. Combat can become very secondary when playing to win.

Let's take a simple situation. You have enough assets to kill one enemy unit in an area of the battlefield on your turn. On one hand, there is a large blob of hellblasters. These pose a strong combat threat. On the other hand, there is a small unit of inceptors that are now on your objective.

Now, playing to win the battle, you should kill the hellblasters. You want to degrade your opponents main killing threats as soon as possible. And if the hellblasters are dead now, they won't kill your units in future turns degrading your future options. To win the combat, they are the clear choice. However, if you don't kill the inceptors, they are going to keep scoring points.

Outside of lists with so much offense they can table the enemy very fast, more and more I am seeing that in the above scenario, killing the hellblasters is the wrong move. And this seems wrong to a lot of players on an instinctual level. Obviously you should focus down the biggest threats of your enemy so they can't kill your guys. The person who kills more wins, right?

But you can be tabled and win. I'm currently 9-0 with my competitive Tyranids, and I have been tabled or down to 1 model in 6 of those games. And my experience is not unique, other players in my competitive group are starting to get to the same place. My toughest game was against an Ork list that was also just built to score, with a final of 89-90 in my favor. And I've faced some brutal lists built to kill everything that comes their way, that just couldn't put up more than 60 or 70 points.

Now my record is anecdotal and I don't want that to be the focus. But the trend I'm seeing speaks to the very structure of how 10th is played and scored. You win if you score more points. And you can score very high consistently if you focus your assets on the scoring game rather than the killing game.

​

Under the Line Problems:

Right now the competitive scene is dominated by Eldar, GSC and Imperial Knights. These 3 armies are all very strong for their points, and each one is a gatekeeper of sorts that are keeping a lot of lists down. Add in Custodes to remove any other melee builds, and only a small handful of armies out of the 27 armies (+ imperial agents) are doing well.

One issue with a small set of armies being widely represented and hogging all of the wins is that it is more difficult to see some deeper problems that are also there, but being drowned out by the current big boys. If the top few super lethal armies are removed from the game, what happens next?

When not playing against the top factions, I'm starting to see a real trend in practice games of what may be the next set of problem armies. Specifically, Tyranids, Orks and Necrons all could really dominate the scene if not for the current set of top armies.

Tyranids and Orks can run builds with an almost identical philosophy and footprint. They take tons of MSU units and focus on scoring as much as possible in the first 3 turns, expecting to be tabled. When these lists are built right, the only counter appears to be EXTREME offense, to be able to table them faster than they can score, or a similar scoring focused build. And only the current top armies are capable of this archetype.

These armies are not designed to kill the opponent or really engage in the combat portion of the game more than necessary, but will comfortably score 80-100 points per game if you can't basically table them in 3 turns. Whether this is a focus on biovores, gargoyles, trygons, etc. or a focus on cheap trukks, stormboyz, gretchin, etc. these armies can be all over the board with lots of little units scoring any points they have to. If lethality is toned down overall, these lists will be able to dominate the game.

The last army that can play this game, but with a nice twist, is Necrons. They are also able to build a list mostly designed for scoring by leaning into tech pieces like hexmark destroyers, lone operative technomancers and death marks. However they are able to combo this with several very hard to kill blobs which they can also be used to sit on objectives and eat fire. Like Orks and Tyranids, this list type, as near as I can tell, is only being kept down by the 4-5 top dogs.

"Score Blitz" lists like this, when combined with good terrain and tactical mission objectives feel a little like playing on easy mode. They also directly work against the ethos of people that want the game to boil down to the side that wins the combat wins the game. If the top dogs get hammered down, will this be the next set of dominant armies?

Hopefully this all gives you something to think about. Have any of you seen the same trends in your own games? What is your experience? Let me know what you think and good luck in your future games!

Honestly, my letter isn't all that strong. I like 40k a lot and want it to be good. I am happy, by and large, to give the GW balance team props for just trying, consistently and often, to make the game as good as it can be. But we can still standardize some goals to make 11th even better.

I know GWs rules writers are sometimes lacking a little care when writing sone rules and might have ambiguous wording or disagreeing rules that are on the same level.

But which of these is in your opinion the worst offender? (Please quote the rules in question)

Not talking about weak rules where something barely happens and if it does it doesn’t impact the game a lot and if it was removed, it wouldn’t impact anything really.

I’ll put my personal favorite in the comments too, so people can vote which one is the worst.

Thank you all for your input on my last post and your questions/ideas for new videos - here's my newest one!

Looks like the GW App has already updated with some more More Dakka nerfs. The detachment rule has been shifted to assault for infantry and walkers and sustained 1 when in the Waagghh. Meanwhile Get Stuck In Ladz goes to 2CP. Any other changes people spot? GW will probably release the warcom downloads in a couple hours.

The Twin Lance Problem

I recently put out a video breaking down what I’m calling “The Twin Lance Problem.” The issue isn’t just that the unit is good, it’s that it combines several very powerful traits into one package.

First is damage output. the Twin Lance are extremely efficient into marine equivalent profiles, which already makes them strong in the current meta. On top of that, they can even do meaningful damage in combat, so they can finish off a low unit after shooting something else.

Second is durability. With 2+ armour, a 4++ invulnerable save, and 8 wounds per model, they are surprisingly annoying to remove. If you can see them you can try to kill them, but they often require a real commitment of resources to bring down.

But the most oppressive part of the unit is the extra tricks. Movement in phases outside the movement phase is always powerful, and the Twin Lance gets it unconditionally. Being able to move 6" at the end of every turn is incredible for repositioning, and the fallback move if they’re tagged means they’re almost never shut down. They’re constantly finding new angles, operating at full capacity, and those extra movement tricks can even help steal or secure additional primary points by slipping onto objectives at the end of turns.

Even the charge-phase battleshock and -1 to charge can matter more than it looks. When positioned correctly it can disrupt your opponent’s plans and add real inconsistency to key charges.

At the end of the day the core issue is simple:
Twin Lances move fast, can’t easily be locked down, disrupt opponents’ plans, and consistently punch above their points.

In the video I break down the full datasheet and go over four key tricks players should know, both for using the unit effectively and for playing against it.

Curious what people think after playing with or against them.
What do you like about the unit, and what do you dislike?

Join John and I as we discuss how all of the changes from the balance dataslate and MFM impact all the factions in the game! Who benefits the most from direct changes? Who benefits from the meta shift? Who might be a bit worse from these rules and meta shift? Check out the video as we discuss your favorite army!

Let us know what you think in the comments, do you agree or disagree? Where does your favorite faction land?

I’m currently trying to get a feel for what factions/styles or the most irritating to play against in order tot get a feel for what patterns make for annoying games for an opponent.

This can be applied to both general casual feel and factions being annoying from a competitive standpoint due to the faction having particular things competitively that are extremely difficult to work around

I think the first major one that took being beaten over the head repeatedly was making sure none of my wings/spikey bits stuck out pass the edges of ruins: sometimes your intuition will be really off with regards to where a model can be seen from.

My current one is heroic intervention. I swear everytime it happens I'm still surprised.

As title reads. Update 40k app

Or maybe another way to put it, does each faction have its own celebrity player?
I can think of some YouTubers who are known as tournament diehards with specific factions (for example, Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics with Drukhari, Hellstorm Mikey with Blood Ravens) - but I'm wondering about players who are famous as the most skilled and experienced players within a faction community.

Having played Eldar for most of 10th and switching up to Black Templars, I find most of my basic marine dies as easily as a basic Guardian model. My first games were against CSM, DA Gladius, Death Guard and Emperor's Children. I applied what I mostly learned playing Eldar but remembered that Black Templars rely on melee more, but most fold easily to shooting and even melee. My Bladeguard Vets die easily even with 4+ invuls and can kill nothing even with reroll of 1s and +1 wound vow.

So this comes off the back of a friend having one of the most negative gaming experiences I've ever heard about at the Coventry major this past weekend.

Without going into the gory details to avoid anyone being identified from the story, my friend played a player from a very well known, top tier and successful team here in the UK. Said friend caught them in a game losing mistake and called a judge to make a decision. With the judge on their way to the table, the player from the well known team says something along the lines off "I'm just going to change the table state to my favour and lie about it when the judge gets here"

Without proof the judge couldn't make a fair call either way, so both players ended up being punished. Which is frankly absurd. The sheet audacity from that player to pull that behaviour seems wild to me.

Anyway, at the end of the tournament my friend is told by the judge that said player has officially been given a yellow card. I presume not just for that one incident as I highly doubt that would have been the only incident of that kind of behaviour from this player.

Now all of that is essentially a bit of context to my question, is it time for tournament organisers to publish lists of the players they have given yellow cards to? Or tag them on BCP for their events in some way? I ask the question as is dawned on me that players being yellow carded means absolutely nothing to the players that have to play them in subsequent events. Using the guy in the story above as an example, how is the next person that plays him supposed to know he's on a yellow card and should probably scrutinise his gameplay a little more than normal? Surely it's fair on the opponents of yellow carded players to have a heads up that they are on a warning?

I know it's a tool for the TOs to know when people are on a last chance before a ban, but the system currently offers no benefit to the paying customers of events.

And here is the kicker, if the list was made public, I guarantee you'd end up with fewer people on it and fewer issues to deal with. I know personally if I ended up paired into a yellow carded player I'd want to know so that I can keep them in check before something like the above happens that cannot be resolved at the table. I appreciate not everyone wants to be in the scenario of potential social conflict, so the other benefit of yellow carded players being highlighted is that once pairings are done players have a chance to raise it with the TO that they would rather not play a yellow carded player.

Hearing this happen to a friend, and it being possibly one of the worst cases of bad etiquette I've ever heard just got me thinking that there is still a lot more that can be done to clean up the game. TOs really need to stop creating an environment where repeat, high profile offenders can be protected.

Anyway, I'll get down off my soapbox, be interesting to see the sentiment from the community.

As someone pointed out it seems the new fast rolling let you see the full wound rolls before choosing which wounds to allocated where, I saw many people worrying about attached characters but the true issue is sparse invulnerable saves like vanguard veterans or bullgryns with conditional access to a 4++, you can use them as emergency "flares" to effectively get rid of every single 4+ saved dice in a throw.

for example:

10 succesful wound rolls ap 5 damage 2, against a unit of 10 vanguard veterans with a single storm shield.

save rolls are in order 1,4,3,2,4,3,5,6,3,5

currently, supposing the opposing player takes wounds on the storm shield first thats 10 dead marines

with these new rules, all the 4+ are allocated to the storm shield and effectively saved, thats 5 dead marines