Detachment Focus: Needgaârd Oathband

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Needgaard Oathband from the Leagues of Votann.

The unfortunately-named Needgaârd Oathband (why does Votann have so many circumflexes?!) is the updated index Detachment for the Leagues of Votann. It focuses on Yield Point generation, securing objectives while rapidly transitioning into Fortify Takeover.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.  We have also been provided with a provisional Munitorum Field Manual for the army to use when writing the review, but please note that these points are subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.

Detachment Overview

This Detachment will feel very similar to the Oathband index Detachment that has dominated Leagues of Votann play since their initial tenth edition release. The significant change to it is in the Detachment rule and some tweaks to several stratagems to reflect the new army rule (Yield Points, referred to as YP from here on out). It works well with pretty much every unit in the book and will most likely be the starting point for most players with this codex.

Detachment Rule: Martial Leverage

Each time an enemy unit is destroyed, you gain 1 YP. About as simple a Detachment rule as you can ask for; this is further bolstered by the enhancements and stratagems to focus around generating and spending as many YP as possible while spending much of the game in Fortify Takeover. A very reasonable B+ Detachment rule – it would have been nice to have a “can” gain 1YP here to allow for a little more control over YP if your army prefers to stay in Hostile Acquisition.

Enhancements

Needgaârd Oathband has four enhancements, one of which will probably never see play, and the other three that will synergize nicely with pretty much any army list.

• Oathbound Speculator (30 pts): Gives the bearer’s unit re-roll wound rolls of 1. Each time their unit is selected to shoot or fight they can spend 3YP and gain +1 to the wound roll. Quite the pricey enhancement, but definitely very powerful on a Memnyr Strategist leading Steeljacks or on a Kahl leading Einhyr Hearthguard. This is one way that Votann players can address the lost +1 to wound from the army rule change.
• Dead Reckoning (10 pts): At the end of the turn, if the bearer is on the battlefield and you spent no YP in that turn, you gain 1YP. Simple, cheap, and a great way to accelerate YP acquisition when placed on a Memnyr Strategist sitting on your home objective.
• Iron Ambassador (5 pts): Once per battle spend up to 3YP to give the bearer’s Autoch-pattern combi-bolter +1 damage for each YP spent. It’s 5 points so toss this on a Kahl or an Einhyr Champion when your list is inevitably 1995 pts. Otherwise pretty inconsequential.
• Ancestral Crest (15 pts): Once per turn you can spend 1YP and discount Command Re-roll by 1CP for the bearer’s unit. Fairly nice but probably not worth taking in most lists.

Stratagems

Needgaârd Oathband has five of the stratagems that the original Oathband Detachment had, with some minor tweaks, and one new stratagem (replacing Newfound Nemesis as that exclusively interacted with Judgement tokens). Most stratagems have a base ability that can then be upgraded by spending an amount of YP, making steady generation of these key to success with this Detachment.

• Void Hardened (1 CP): Armour of Contempt but your army has to be in Fortify Takeover; very solid stratagem – the small condition on it will make it less useful early game but when stacking with the -1 to wound from Fortify Takeover it can be quite annoying to remove things like Steeljacks. B+
• Honour of the Hold (1 CP): In the fight phase gives a unit +1AP or +2AP if you spend 3YP. Turns Beserks and Steeljacks up to 11 in melee and allows them to cleave through even the tankiest units. A-
• Ordered Retreat (1 CP): Fall back shoot and charge for a unit. No restrictions, still one of the most powerful abilities in the game. A+
• Ancestral Sentence (1 CP): Sustained Hits 1 in shooting, or pay 3YP and gain Sustained Hits 2 instead. This stratagem lives on and will continue to torment players, with fun new interactions like Thunderkyn with Critical 4’s and Sustained 2 / Lethal Hits! S-tier
• HuntTR’s Mark (1 CP): Re-roll hit and wound rolls of 1 in shooting for one of your units. Quite solid, though quite a few units now have baked in hit re-rolls (Pioneers, Hekaton, Warriors). B+
• Reactive Reprisal (2 CP): Shoot back at a unit that shot your unit, if you are in Fortify Takeover. Pricey, but the threat of this stratagem alone will cause your opponent to rethink their shooting allocations on the regular; attempting chip damage against a Hekaton Land Fortress remains the scariest thing to do. B-

Playing This Detachment

As more or less the basic Detachment for Votann, this sets the baseline for how the faction will play. You’re going to accumulate YP early, which is good because you have ways to spend it… but those are dependent on also spending Command Points, and you don’t really have any good ways to gain them. As such, Uthar is going to be a must-take in your army thanks to his ability to get you CP reduction on Stratagems. Because this Detachment has a wider spread of buffs it tends to ask for more varied armies; Honour of the Hold is very powerful, but it’s not going to mean much if you don’t have a unit of Beserks or melee Steeljacks around to make use of it, and that may not be what your army wants to do. Your better play is likely going to be saving those YP for Ancestral Sentence, turning your Thunderkyn into absolute terrors.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you’re going to generate YP at different rates depending on the opponent. Horde armies like Genestealer Cults are going to provide a lot of opportunities for early YP generation but against Knights your Detachment rule may as well say “gain 1 YP per round” at best. That’s going to create challenges, particularly when you’re going to really want Fortify Takeover against those high-strength weapons on top of what you’re spending. Because of this, you’re going to want alternate ways to gain additional YP, and the Memnyr Strategist is your best option there.

Strengths

• Adaptability. With access to a very powerful toolbox of stratagems that allow players to react to most board states and even a few get out of jail abilities such as Ordered Retreat.
• Durability. Being able to stack Void Hardened with a very quick Fortify Takeover when coupled with their already high durability can make removing units from the game quite challenging.
• Good Synergy. Stratagems that feed off of YP with a Detachment rule and enhancements that further fuel YP generation makes for a very straightforward gameplan.

Weaknesses

• Slow/transport reliant. This is an issue with most Leagues Detachments. A lack of mobility buffs means that once units are out of their transports they’re considerably harder to maneuver.
• CP hungry. This Detachment used to come with 2-3 bonus CP in most matchups, but there is practically no generation in this Detachment. Uthar the Destined becomes a must-take for the discount.
• Elite. As the Detachment encourages larger bricks to make the most out of their stratagem suite, it leads to having fewer scoring units and losing a single unit or having multiple shooting units tagged in one turn can make things really rough.

A Sample List

When building a list for Needgaârd, having two or three big units will help make the most out of Ancestral Sentence. Best of these are Pioneers, Thunderkyn, or Steeljacks with Volkanite. Basic scoring is always useful, and having a Memnyr Strategist in addition to a character with Dead Reckoning will have a really big impact on rushing Fortify Takeover as quickly as possible in addition to generating all the YP this Detachment wants to spend. Buri is there for early objective securing taking advantage of his Lone Operative ability while Uthar is there with a unit of warriors to keep stratagems nice and cheap.

Need for - click to expand

This list is built to generate as many YP as possible as quickly as possible. With Dead Reckoning on the Arkanyst that has Lone Operative, you would gain 4 YP in the first battle round (1 from each player’s command phase, and 1 from each turn if none are spent from Dead Reckoning). If you go first, you’ll gain another 2 from controlling your home and 1 in no-man’s land and then 1 further from the Memnyr Strategist if you positioned them in range of an objective. Positioning carefully gives you Fortify Takeover T2 with no kills required and then allows you to continue generating YP throughout the game to keep feeding Ancestral Sentence and Honour of the Hold. Thunderkyn out of the Hekaton are a great counter to nearly any unit in the game with their Lethal hits on 4+ and access to Sustained Hits 2.

Final Thoughts

Overall this Detachment offers a good amount of flexibility and an opportunity for Votann players to try out all of their new (and old) toys. I expect that this Detachment will be one of the top two Detachments competitively alongside Brandfast Oathband when the codex is released into the wild. Definitely a great starting point for all Votann players both old and new.

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