Warhammer 40k 8th edition has been a roller coaster of emotion and power creep. But does this make each book released better than the next, and if it does when will the DAY1 books get an update?
It seems like the release of every codex just makes the newest army more and more powerful. Let’s take a look and see if that’s really true.
As more and more codexes are released, there’s been a trend of armies getting stronger and sometimes more stratagems than the previous book.
Blood Angels & Dark Angels
These two chapters got their codex pretty early on in 8th edition. When you look at their chapter tactics no one would argue that it’s fluffy and good on the tabletop either. With Blood Angels basically being +1 to wound if they charged or were charged (which happens a lot) and Dark Angels rerolling 1’s to hit made it so you can overcharge for days without the need of a captain.
Both of these are solid. Having a much better combat capability with Blood Angels and saving anywhere between 100-300 points for Captains to put somewhere else with Dark Angels. The stratagems in the book were nice as well. Although almost 50% of them were ported from Chapter Approved.
As time went on we saw more and more Codexes come out and then Death Guard super-combos started happening.
Death Guard Shenanigans
Death Guard got more support in such a short amount of time it could make your head spin. There’s nothing wrong with getting new units and some spotlight either. But what was crazy was the stratagems and their army-wide rule that came along with the codex. Can we take a minute just to talk about how rage-inducing the disgustingly resilient rule is? I’m sure friendships have been threatened by this rule. Death Guard are innately slow because they’re falling apart.
So it makes sense fluff-wise and competitively to give them something that represents how tough they are. You’d think that rolling a 5+ to save a wound wouldn’t happen that often but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen my opponent roll his dice and look up with an (explicit)-eating grin.
To go even further, they ignore Heavy and advancing and firing assault weapons. They also have their rapid fire on most things increased to 18″ instead of 12″ with inexorable advance. So with this rule they basically have the threat bubble and speed of most armies along with that rage-inducing 5+ disgustingly resilient roll.
Then we have the Sappurating Plate relic. Getting a 2+ armor save and rolling a 4+ on each wound you save, you deal a mortal wound back to the enemy. This has completely killed entire units of Death Company and Ork Boyz. We can’t forget that Death Guard gets the psychic cheese of being -1 to hit, +1 strength and toughness, and even getting a free mortal wound if you cast something on a 7 with their Librarian equivalents.
Deathwatch Codex
With Deathwatch being one of the newest releases into the codex pool they got the better end of the elite-army stick. These guys specialize in killing Xenos but can comfortably walk through anything they want to if they’re geared right. They’re unlike their Grey Knight counterparts who go beaten into the ground by FAQs and Daemon stratagems. A basic troop choice of Deathwatch is only about 5 points more expensive than a bare-bones troop choice for another chapter and they get all the ammo to help in any fight. The good news is that most of their stratagems only hate on Xenos. But man…do they hate on Xenos.
Spending 1 CP to remove all markerlights from a squad that a Tau gunline shot both of his pathfinder squads at and getting a free shooting phase at an Aeldari think with fly are insane. We can’t forget about adding an inch of charge distance for each Ork killed in overwatch to these guys. Have you looked into what a Frag Launcher is? It’s a 2D6 Auto hitting S6 -1AP firehose of hate. You can nuke that Eldar thing that just moved and make an Ork Boy unit fail a charge at 2 inches away.
What are we Getting At?
What we’re saying is that we can see a definite trend in power as time goes on into 8th Edition. Codexes are getting more stratagems and faction-wide rules that seem to put them just a little bit ahead of everyone else. So don’t complain about not getting a codex. I’m talking to you Ork and Spacewolf players. Your time will come and your books are probably going to be one of the strongest available. It seems like it’s better to be later than sooner in 8th.
What do you think about the power scaling in 8th so far? Have you experienced what we talked about in this article on the tabletop? Let us know what you think over on our hobby page on Facebook.
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
