Do not miss the 4 things that were supposed to ruin the hobby but didn’t. Let’s look at some things that made us worry about the sky falling and see how they turned out.
PRIMARIS MARINES WILL TAKE OUR JURBS!
When Primaris Marines showed up, there was an outcry on the internet among Marine players who feared that their existing collections of normal Marines would become redundant and obsolete in the wake of the big fat 2 wound Marines. Chicken Little was worried about the future of his geneseed.
What the Primaris fearmongers didn’t seem to understand was that in an edition that favors deep strike denial, objective control, and detachment abuse through cheap troops, Marines were already struggling to keep up with their normal one wounders and scouts. A more expensive 2 wound marine would not exactly address this problem.
Fast forward to the present, and we see that the only Primaris unit that’s been widely adopted is the Hellblaster, because why wouldn’t a whole squad of guys with big plasma guns be good?
Every Primaris Marine unit suffers from a lack of the singular quality that makes Marines playable; that’s having options. Nearly every Marine unit in the game has a laundry list of choices of guns or power weapons. Primaris Marines have none of that, are more expensive, and have no access to cheap transports.
The Primaris Marines not only failed to take the job of a one wound marine who was already languishing on unemployment, he was artfully designed to fail. The only thing that Intercessors really have going for them is that they’re a 5 model troop squad that will be quicker to paint than their ten model tactical squad equivalent.
8TH EDITION KILLED ALAN BLIGH AND HORUS HERESY!
When 8th Edition first dropped, Chicken Littles all over the internet were mad that along with Alan Bligh’s untimely passing, Horus Heresy would go down the tubes with it. Chickens feared that 30k would go to 8E, and the game would be ruined.
Fast forward to the present, and despite having a year of 8E under our belts and Bligh having passed, Primarch models are still coming out, there has been no rules packet that converts 30K to 8E, and nobody with a Heresy collection seems to be going anywhere. TO’s that organize Heresy tournaments are still reporting sold-out attendance.
What’s especially delicious is that a lot of the chickens who cried about 8E and went full time into 30k to “escape it” have now tasted 8E and liked it, and now cry for 30K to get an 8E treatment, a complete flip on their previous stance.
P.S. Spikey Bits didn’t kill Horus Heresy either, the chicken littles did.
GW KILLED/WILL KILL SLAANESH
It’s an absolute fact that Slaanesh is having an identity crisis. The God of glam metal and daemon chicks with is giving GW managers all over the world a tough sales pitch in a “Family Friendly” games store.
But to say that GW has killed off Slaanesh is not only a Chicken Little reaction but a categorical falsehood.
Slaanesh has gone from being a living tribute to 80’s hair to being the most important god in the Chaos pantheon. His absence has made him a central character in the lore of 40k and fantasy, and he isn’t going anywhere. He’s just having a nap.
Here are all the reasons GW can’t delete Slaanesh and he’s more important than ever.
- Slaanesh has 2 entire brand new order armies in Age of Sigmar that are dedicated to his destruction and stealing back their souls from him is the core of their origin story. Morathi and King Neptune both fundamentally need Slaanesh to rationalize their existence.
- Slaanesh is still the principal villain of the Eldar race, and now has an entire faction of fence-sitting soup Eldar with their own fancy plastic avatar dedicated to his demise. Again, Slaanesh is a lore requirement.
- Slaanesh is still and always was the most significant God with the most effect on 40k lore, and the only Chaos God that has left an inadvertent and permanent mark on the galactic map. It was the fall of the Eldar and the end of the warp storms surrounding Terra that allowed the Great Crusade, both results of Slaanesh’s birth. The site of Slaanesh’s birth, the original Eldar homeworlds, is now the Eye of Terror. Having 40k without Slaanesh is like having 40k without Horus. Just because Noise Marine weapons aren’t plastic, doesn’t mean that Slaanesh is out of a job.
FORGE WORLD UNITS ARE BUSTED
A popular assertion among 40k players all over the internet is that Forge World units as a whole are busted wide open and overpowered. While there have been rare individual cases where a single unit was justifiably over-performing, the track record of Forge World vs 40k is much cleaner than the internet thinks, even if you account for the massive difference in relative scale of production.
It’s actually safer to say that with a few rare exceptions, the average Forgeworld model is objectively inferior to its plastic codex counterpart that does the same job, and most of these overperforming exceptions are marine units, which is an army that always ages poorly and underperforms being the first codex of every edition.
Chicken Little is also quick to forget about units that were born on Forgeworld and then transitioned to main-line plastic kits. Once a unit goes plastic, Chicken Little forgets about how broken Forge World is!
Here’s a short list of units that were born at Forge World.
- Valkyrie
- Bane/Sword superheavy tanks
- Leman Russ executioner
- Trygons
- Rifleman/Mortis Dreads
- Contemptors
Of those listed models, does anything look like it’s taking over the table?
The biggest problems in 40k have never been Forge World problems. Are Leviathan Dreadnoughts and Fire Raptor Gunships really good? Of course, they are, but they have a serious problem; they’re space Marine Models.
One or two massively popular models covered in guns that welds up a hole in an army isn’t a symptom of an over-performing model, it’s the symptom of a weak codex.
I’ve never had a bad game or an automatic loss because of a Forgeworld unit and I’m sure you haven’t either. Here’s a list of problems past and present that will sweep you off the table.
- Seven Flyrants
- Six Stormravens
- Nob Biker, Thunderwolf Cav, and Grey Knight Character wound allocation abuse
- Eternal Warrior Demons and re-rolling 2++
Just to name a few. When you take a look at the monster lists that have ‘ruined’ 40k in the past, you see that guys like Kharybdis Claws, Fire Raptors, and big fat Dreadnoughts are pretty small time. The real meta killers that ruin the game are undercosted and/or over performing spam, and lack of oversight in shoddy rules writing.
There’s a reason mortal wounds exist- And it’s because you can’t trust the boys up at Nottingham to not accidentally give you a way to find an unfailable, invulnerable save!
What’s Chicken Little’s latest beef with Forge World? The termite assault drill, which deep strikes onto the battlefield and pops a free mortal wound on every unit within 12 inches. A lot of people are saying that’s freaking crazy. A free 12” bubble of mortal wounds! Multiple termites popping at once could slay a character automatically!
Here’s why that won’t work out so hot.
- A Termite Drill is a PL6 dedicated transport, so not only are you going to have buy this monster to spam it, but you’re going to have to pay a “unit tax” to unlock it. Look at your army roster rules in the detachment section of the rulebook- You’re allowed to have one dedicated transport per eligible unit in the army, meaning that you have to buy something to put in it. Only units like Land Raiders and Stormravens that are in their own FOC slots can be bought independent of passengers, and since Marines aren’t cheap, this really isn’t happening. Theoretically, Chaos Marines could abuse this with Cultist passengers, but that defeats the purpose of using Cultists as cheap line infantry, and spamming Forgeworld is expensive.
- Deep strike arrival outside of your own deployment is now limited to turn 2, so now your opponent not only has the option to block this trick during deployment, but he has a whole movement phase to make absolutely sure his characters are wrapped enough to not give up drill mortal wounds.
- The Mawloc already does this exact same thing, can literally do it every other turn, can pop up closer to his target, and can deal multiple mortal wounds, and for only 104 points. Why is everyone worried? Give Xenos a goofy rule, nobody bats an eye. Give Marine players a goofy rule, and it’s dogs and cats living together.
Some people will say, “But Jstove, it’s an automatic mortal wound on every enemy unit in 12 inches with no dice roll!” to which I reply, “You can have your one-and-done for free at 12 on your fat chunk of resin, because I’d rather pop up an inch away from whatever I want and bet that 2+ Mawloc roll for big money and get a D3 or 3 pop every other turn.
I don’t care about putting one crappy mortal wound on a Cultist screen. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Biovores.”
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