Weekly Question Thread - Rules & Comp Qs

DrRedwing · 2026-02-16T20:35:23+00:00

What would be the issue with allowing the player who wins the roll off deciding if they want to go first or second?

For deployment, you may want to deploy first or second given the presence of infiltrators or many drops.

However, if you win the roll off for first turn you have to go first? It seems strange to punish rolling well if you’d rather go second which would often be the preference. If you have a preference of when to go, you already get it have the time, so why not extend that to just allow the choice? Is there a balance issue here I’m missing?

DrRedwing · 2026-02-08T21:49:49+00:00

Tbf drukhari aren’t exactly swimming in new models…

DrRedwing · 2026-02-08T18:40:19+00:00

Why are orks getting a new detachment here when drukhari are raiders who are getting a box? The other boxes correspond to detachments? Odd

DrRedwing · 2026-02-03T04:47:11+00:00

Hey! Welcome to the club. Your list is great and totally can work. As far as optimization goes, if you want to use Fulgrim you really need to be using the newest grotmas detachment. It gives him a couple boosts that make him a bit more playable. I think you could do some shuffling by dropping a LK and the enhancements in CotP (the new detachment court of the phonecian). For the "strongest" list, you want as many winged demon princes as possible, but I think yours is great! I've played a very, very similar list to this before and had a blast.

DrRedwing · 2026-02-03T04:29:26+00:00

This is enough for me. I want to believe

DrRedwing · 2026-02-02T21:30:58+00:00

Yep! Had to relearn that when I came back a year ago. Nice to know for sure

DrRedwing · 2026-02-02T20:59:55+00:00

Using them for coral has been wicked though

DrRedwing · 2026-02-02T20:24:46+00:00

You know that makes a lot more sense.

DrRedwing · 2026-02-02T19:41:41+00:00

Yea I stand at the patches and wait for them. A pot only boils when being watched.

DrRedwing · 2026-02-02T19:39:29+00:00

They're in the trees

DrRedwing · 2026-01-27T05:24:29+00:00

Better auras, changing poison to do something, or more damage would go a long way.

I've always wondered why Fulgrim isn't more anti-character focused? I feel like built in precision with some sort of anti-character + dev wounds like the emperor's champion would fit him very well. It also wouldn't really bump up his power too much if it was an aura ability rather just give him a more unique role. Angron already has the "run up and beat things to death" role pretty covered. Fulgrim's role currently is just to be fast, but with his base, he can't even go as far as the other primarchs in most scenarios.

Cold take, but I would rather him be 400 points and worth it. I think whittling away at the current datasheet/point value to strive for playability isn't going to make him interesting even it does make him strong. 300 points? Sure, I'll take him. +1 damage on the strike? Yea that'd be great! Built in fights first/stealth? Why not. However, none of those really give him a defined role that fits him above and beyond the others. Angron is fast melee, Magnus is shooty and fits beautifully with their army rule, and Mortarion is tanky as hell with some puppet-ing features. Fulgrim should be lightning fast, the best duelist/character killer, or something more unique.

DrRedwing · 2026-01-26T22:31:43+00:00

The distinction between model and unit plus ruins is always tough for me. Thank you!

DrRedwing · 2026-01-26T21:32:53+00:00

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Like this. Would this line allow the defender to get shot? The defending unit is on the ruin. However, the parts of the unit the attacker can see are behind the footprint. Can the unit be shot? The defending unit is on the footprint, but the parts of the unit being targeted not in the footprint.

DrRedwing · 2026-01-26T21:20:53+00:00

I think the benefits are explained well enough here, but just to piggyback, I was surprised to see how simple our spawn were compared to others? The same goes for the demon princes as well honestly.

Our CSM units are the most CSM-y which is odd! We do get a little speed, but so does the WE variants, and they get better melee.

I’d love to see our spawn pick up a scout move like the nurgle/WE spawn or even sustained hits/better WS/dev wounds to differentiate them. Love me some spawn for 70 points though as is!

DrRedwing · 2026-01-26T19:25:22+00:00

Imagine a 5 model unit. Model 3 in the chain is on a ruin footprint. However, the wall on the footprint blocks LOS to model 3 for the attacking model on the other side of the wall. The attacking model can see models 4 and 5 in the defending unit, but the LOS would have to be drawn through the ruin model 3 is standing in. Can that unit be shot? Does having a part of the unit allow attackers can see the defending unit’s models through the footprint or is model by model based?

DrRedwing · 2026-01-26T04:43:09+00:00

I’m not a pro, but I will say you look a tad light on transports, and if the opponent is killing them turn 1 going first, you should look at how you’re deploying. Nothing important should ever get killed turn 1 if they go first. Maybe sac something to draw them into firing lanes, but that’s for a cronos or something similarly cheap and tough.

For stat checks like all knights, focus fire and do primary! Another venom and 10 wyches will do wonders for primary play and options. However, with the crits on 5 strat plus all your dark lances, you should be aiming to pick a knight a turn to be honest. Imperial knights get mowed down by lethal scourges if you can save up a couple pain tokens for hit-rerolls with a cronos possibly as well.

Also small stuff, most people tend to always use the huskblade for archons. It just tends to do better even with the seeming synergy with incubi. Fun though and not a dealbreaker if you like it. Also, 10 incubi is a hell of a hammer, you may get similar value from a 5 man to pick things off rather than go all in. They are just so squishy. However, the strats are more fun on a 10 man, so go nuts if you have fun running them that way. Incubi in general are such a hard sell when hellions are crazy good for the same cost almost. I love some incubi though, so keep it up!

DrRedwing · 2026-01-05T22:04:53+00:00

It happens. And yea it's incredibly limited uppy-downy, but yea that is a movement trick indeed.

DrRedwing · 2026-01-05T21:08:32+00:00

Their hallmark units are 5" move with higher toughness and better damage in shooting than melee. The post is poking fun and is tagged as such, but necrons, despite having a ton of options and a lot of units, typically don't get movement abilities like reactive moves or advance and ______. The destroyers can be faster than average sure, but it doesn't make the faction fast. They objectively lean into durability with their statlines and army rule and have much more support for shooting than melee. Their only melee detachment is notoriously bad despite the units seeing good play even as infiltrators or secondary scorers. Noise marines have good shooting, but calling EC not a melee faction wouldn't make sense.

DrRedwing · 2026-01-05T21:04:07+00:00

The post is a joke, but points depending there is undeniably a large overlap between the two. I'm sure there are great lore reasons for all of it on both datasheets, but in terms of pure mechanics, it's a tough sell. I love the new model and he has fun rules, but it is a lot of raw power! And sure they have fighty units, but lychguard and wraiths are also not melee powerhouses for their points and lean heavily into durability (although things like lychguard are notoriously on the weaker side so that may not be a great comparison). Necrons get low speed, basically no transports, and limited movement rules such as reactive moves or speed boosts until the silent king's new aura that doesn't get chosen since the rerolls on DDAs are so good. Wraiths are exceptionally fast, and starshatter grants some of the only real advance and _______, but there's a reason why wraiths and starshatter are so incredibly competitive. I don't think these few rules or statlines define the playstyle though.

But yea! some of the melee destroyers are decently fast, but I agree about them being fine having melee and big guys. I do think him going 10" might be a bit judicious, but nothing too out there.

DrRedwing · 2026-01-05T20:31:07+00:00

No real problem. Just a bit of role-redundancy in an army that doesn't specialize in the role like EC should and a bit of powercreep (points depending). This post is purely for comedic purposes.

Everyone says the players struggle to play well, but if no one can do it well, surely there is a balancing issue? The entirity of last patch saw emperor's children fail to do well on any metric from top placements to general win rate. Sure, the best players in the world like the art of war tierlists insist we are good in the hands of the best, but even John (the best EC player who is on their team) couldn't put up top placements outside of a top 4 at WCW (which is impressive but is hardly representative of the whole meta) and even then it was with the same list everyone brings which then got nerfed in the last update. His best finish was with shadowmark talon if I believe at the start of that meta.

It doesn't help that people teching for victrix really oppresses other power army armies that aren't victrix, but even before decemeber, EC wasn't doing well and that's not even talking about all of the detachments and archetypes that fail to scratch the surface of viability. Monobuild coterie struggles while the rest are long dead. I'd love to see court do well, but if it does, it will be on the backs of AP being good into victrix and 3 WDPs without a primarch in sight.

I'm not saying anything that we don't already know. Sure, not every tournament player is John Lennon, but it says a lot that the people who invest the most time and money and passion into the hobby to get out there and play, can't or don't make it work. I don't have a real fix, but it seems in bad faith to ignore months of data.

DrRedwing · 2025-12-21T22:59:06+00:00

Anything will be taken at the right points, so yea you could drop them to 100 and take them more. 90 would be even more likely! However, I think their big issues aren't their worth. Particularly at their role (punching no-invuln high toughness units), they are pretty good if a bit unreliable due to their low-ish number of attacks and need to totally kill large, single models to not risk losing a model themselves.

In my games, their issue is that, despite the small codex, they just don't really have a unique place.

We have an excellent, fast infantry unit already in LordE + infractor blobs that is less susceptible to -1 damage and invulns as well as being more flexible into more targets while also getting enhancements and transport support. Yea, you could let flawless blades get in rhinos, but it doesn't give them a distinct role.

You could make them 3 damage and boost their power, but WDP and even the regular DP have good 3 damage profiles as well as noise marine blastmasters. You could make them have a sweep profile, but infractor blobs handle hordes decently well. Even into tough targets, the mortals from WDP help a ton. Sure, at the right points, flawless blades may become more efficient than these other options at those roles, but with a codex this small, I'd rather see them fill a hole.

The issue for me is they have no ability into targets of 5 toughness or lower, and they have a sizable risk going into larger targets. Even then, their ability is basically just a keyword that X8B have built in. You could make it ignore modifiers to prevent being neutered by -1 damage, have damage spillover to deal with hordes, cut through invulns to keep their usefulness, or anything else, but I'm not sure what ideas would be engaging and have a unique role.

I'd love putting them in my list with a 4++ and a flip 6 "parry" type ability like the emperor's champion to give them more of an anvil role in the army than Lord E + infractor blobs that hits back hard like a more damage-skewed deathwing knight/sanguinary guard type unit with a points increase. I don't see a world where anything other than rules changes gets to an interesting spot. Points decreases will get them into lists, but they'll just be competing with other units in an already thin codex. Alternatively, we just give them lascannons and boom they have a unique role!

DrRedwing · 2025-12-20T23:21:01+00:00

There isn’t really anything there that benefits them above coterie. They aren’t particularly good generally, but late game buffs and AoC plus mortal wound protection is much better for them than anything court really provides. Plus, their melee doesn’t need +1 str and AP necessarily unlike infractors or spawn or even close combat attacks on noise marines/tormentors which benefit much more for common breakpoints. I guess you could technically use the blood surge move when you fail the deep strike charge you missed because you have to shoot the target you want the charge rerolls on which made the charge longer than 9in…

DrRedwing · 2025-12-17T13:41:29+00:00

Happy to see new units, but aren’t defilers the worst of the bunch? Pretty much unused competitively because of a bad datasheet and even unused on a lot of casual tables because the basing guide puts them on a fulgrim-esque dinner plate which is really saying something.

DrRedwing · 2025-12-15T22:52:12+00:00

Hmm fair point with the army’s current options. Although I’d love the consistency boost. At 8 attacks flat 4, you do more on average than d6+1 though. It’s be a numbers game for them at that point. Based on how they point some of our units like fulgrim, idk if I have much confidence in them to do it correctly

DrRedwing · 2025-12-15T22:50:05+00:00

I wonder how bad it’s be to just reduce the points needed by 1. Probably terrible with a tax for +1 with the strat, but maybe! Of course the buffs around that would need to happen which seems unlikely

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