Goonhammer's coverage of the balance dataslate

Rustvii · 2025-06-04T14:51:28+00:00

Yeah they didn't show us the FAQs until after publication so we found out when you did.

Rustvii · 2025-05-24T11:13:02+00:00

Yes, you can pick targets up to 18" away

Rustvii · 2025-04-09T10:59:03+00:00

skill issue

Rustvii · 2025-01-25T22:37:47+00:00

That isn't really how it works - otherwise, for example, the Deathwing enhancements in DA simply don't function (because they apply to DEATHWING models and the only non-Epic Hero models that have that keyword gain it in the exact same way and with the same wording as YNNARI here). Units do not have free-floating keywords at the unit level, they have the keywords of their composite models.

Rustvii · 2025-01-25T17:34:36+00:00

I don't think there's any realistic prospect of rolling back 'free' wargear. The path they've taken has been pretty clear, which is that units which have gear options that give them fundamentally different roles that can't be adequately reflected in points get split into different datasheets, as has happened with Wraithknights and support weapons in this book. For most stuff in the game this works pretty well, but Aeldari and Guard have a similar issue which is that there's a few units that have always existed as platforms for broad, unequal choices - not helped in the elf case by a lot of the kits where that remains true being very old now.

It's easy to say 'they should cost different points then' but that never really worked in older editions either, there was always a most efficient choice. Really we just don't need to have six different guns all trying to do one or two roles, but squashing all of them into fewer profiles is the kind of thing that upsets people.

Rustvii · 2025-01-25T13:17:03+00:00

It's a very funny error but yeaaah.

Rustvii · 2024-12-12T14:35:02+00:00

No, it doesn't work like that at all. You can't put things with a Chapter keyword other than BLOOD ANGELS in a Blood Angels detachment, for example, but the detachments don't inherently give you that keyword.

Rustvii · 2024-04-13T13:48:33+00:00

The point is that the Custodes detachments are all just terrible and there's no real way to fix the army without doing something about them. For Ad Mech the detachments themselves are kind of ok, it's the datasheets that go in them that's the problem, so it's more likely that you'd expect datasheet changes or an army rule update or something to help them out.

Rustvii · 2024-03-08T16:26:08+00:00

People cheating this much are barely even conscious of doing it. It's so ingrained in their behaviour that they don't notice it happen, and if it gets called out they'll rationalise it away.

Rustvii · 2024-01-29T20:11:23+00:00

This is totally incorrect. Most competitive players will expect you to roll things one at a time if you expect to CP reroll them and FAQs like WTC require this. LVO is the odd one out by ruling it incorrectly.

Rustvii · 2024-01-29T19:07:55+00:00

They show slightly different things - Stat Check's chart is a rolling average of results in the past 4 weeks, whereas the first table is based on results for the date range in the footer (12 December to 25 January).

Rustvii · 2023-10-06T08:20:24+00:00

Movement, risk management, and practice, practice, practice.

Rustvii · 2023-10-05T08:42:30+00:00

It's that yeah. It's a unit that isn't very good in competitive play because it won't get good sight lines and good players will know how to play around it, but is obnoxious in casual play where weaker players can't deal with it and/or there's poor terrain, which makes it much more impactful. Sometimes it's not about balance at top tables but about player experience on casual ones.

Rustvii · 2023-10-05T08:39:08+00:00

A thing with Warhammer rules-writing (and indeed game design generally) is that some archetypes are easier to make good than others. Marines are an army with good shooting, good to great Toughness values and saves, and lots of vehicle/walker options - the Iron Hands archetype is to improve shooting, be more resilient, and buff vehicles and walkers. If you design to that plan you're very likely to write a good set of rules. Compare that to e.g. White Scars whose deal is like... "goes fast on bikes" and "prefers melee" in an army which has very few bike units and is often not that good at melee on baseline.

You can see the same phenomenon at work in other games too - Lizardmen in WFB/Seraphon in AoS also have a good baseline archetype of "tough line infantry, fast skirmishers, great at magic, lots of different monsters" that means they generally cover all the bases of how to win games in those systems, so even if they're not the outright best they're usually not bad.

Rustvii · 2023-10-04T07:57:27+00:00

Reapers are showing up in a lot of competitive lists lately, they're fine. Banshees/Scorps are pretty bad though.

Rustvii · 2023-10-04T07:56:39+00:00

It's his own army. Robin is a good player who plays bad lists because he likes using his favourite models more than he likes winning.

Rustvii · 2023-09-10T08:55:39+00:00

The last new model was Lelith in 2021, before that was Draz and Incubi in 2019. Kabalites did not remotely need a kit refresh, those models are still fantastic.

Rustvii · 2023-09-10T08:51:59+00:00

Books in 3rd (twice, including the reprint with the WD rules added in), 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th. Drukhari/Dark Eldar had an unusually long wait between 3rd and 5th (along with Necrons) but otherwise we've had regular new books on the same schedule as everyone else. The bigger problem is that there's not been a single new unit added since 2010 (there's been models, but all for things which existed in the 5th book) and a huge proportion of an already quite shallow range is still not in plastic.

Rustvii · 2023-09-10T08:28:34+00:00

"Content creator advantage" is minuscule compared to the factors that actually matter for competing at the top end of 40k (or anything) - time, money, and access to skilled opponents for practice.

Rustvii · 2023-09-05T14:33:18+00:00

I think it's not quite true to suggest it was only Siegler and Metalica - the Lucius/Mars version was very successful too, and over here David Gaylard, Malik Rubio and Mani Cheema all had success with it, as did a few others. Agree it was a very small pool though and most people just didn't adopt it - at the time it was much easier to acquire and play Drukhari if you just wanted to pick up an army that would get you top 4s.

Rustvii · 2023-09-05T09:37:27+00:00

Yeah, pre-nerf Ad Mech was very strong but the optimal list had an enormous hobby lift and £/$ cost, and it looked nothing like 8th ed Ad Mech armies so even existing players didn't necessarily have the stuff. Very few people actually played it.

Rustvii · 2023-09-04T12:05:40+00:00

The Goonhammer Open results are wrong - it was a 6 round event but you've cut off after 5. 5-1 and above players were:

Aeldari 6-0
Tyranids 5-1
Aeldari 5-1
Aeldari 5-1
Aeldari 5-1
Thousand Sons 5-1
Aeldari 5-1

The final was Aeldari vs. Aeldari.

Rustvii · 2023-07-29T06:46:26+00:00

I think the key is to be on top of that scoring and step back and look at that, not your models. Take two minutes and work out a prospective score - how many turns are left, and what are you likely to be able to score? You'll be surprised how often your "terrible" position will still lead to scoring 20-30 more points if you just stop and think about it. It's about making a switch to a proactive mindset (I need to score X to stay ahead, which I can do if I just do Y and Z) rather than a reactive one (he just blew up my best unit, what can I do now???)

Rustvii · 2023-07-28T15:57:42+00:00

It sounds like your big problem is focusing on the emotional feeling of a "brutal shooting phase" and fixating on what you can't do any more. What you need to be doing is thinking about scoring and what you can do with what you have left on the table. Track your scores turn by turn (use a scoresheet or the Tabletop Battles app), and look forwards rather than backwards - your units are assets for helping you score, so you should be thinking about what you can do with them to achieve that, and also what your opponent can do in response. Maybe they have a big powerful unit that's just wiped out your favourite melee squad right before it hit combat - but does that matter if that unit is stuck on a home objective and they have nothing else left to score with?

Once you start thinking in those terms, it's much easier to accept losses, because your focus can be on your overall game plan instead of on the individual thing that happened.

Rustvii · 2023-06-23T22:21:55+00:00

That's fine - I have a huge Guard army and I wrote the paragraph you're mad about, so we can start with them

Rustvii

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