After a long wait, the game’s newest standalone army finally has its tenth edition Codex. The initial release of Codex: Leagues of Votann in ninth edition may have been the game’s roughest, with the book receiving a series of nerfs prior to its release to prevent it from completely warping the meta. In that regard this new book has a relatively low hurdle to clear in terms of not upending things, but given the current state of the meta Votann players are hoping for something that raises the fortunes of the faction more than keeping the status quo. The upside is that this release comes with six new kits and eight new units, giving players more variety to work with, at the very least.
In this review, we’ll look at the new book, the new faction rules, the new units, and how it all comes together for the army.
Before we dive in we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Codex. 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.
Army Overview
Votann have received a full reworking with this Codex, with a new army rule and reworked datasheets for almost every unit in the army.
We think the following are five standout features of this book:
- Judgement Tokens are out. A long controversial mechanic that led to a lot of bad feelings at the table has been retired in favour of a new currency mechanic, Yield Points.
- Yield Points are in. Votann armies accumulate Yield Points by holding objectives (mostly), and depending on how many you have, you’ll gain a bonus to hit with your units when attacking enemy units on objectives and either re-rolls on advance and charge rolls or -1 to be wounded.
- The new units are solid. Steeljacks appear to be one of the standout units in the new book, and there are a number of different ways to use them. The new characters are also pretty good and we’re big fans of the Kapricus.
- The casino is closed. The Votann have decided to cash out of the casino, so the days of Sustained D3 on the SP Heavy Conversion Beamer and HYLas Beam Cannon for Land Fortress and the Sagitaur, respectively, are done. However they’ve picked up some power in other areas, like the Conversion Beamer on the Hekaton now firing four shots and the Magna-Rail cannon firing two.
- Lost Wounds. Why the hell did so many units lose wounds? Beserks and Thunderkyn both losing a wound per model is a substantial hit to their durability, even with increases to the save, toughness, and FNP on Beserks.
The Video Version
If you’d like to watch a video review of this book rather than read, or you’d like to do both, we’ve got you covered with your video review of the book, here:
Army Rules
Grudge Tokens are gone! In their place is a new rule, Prioritized Efficiency, which governs how the Votann handle their business on the battlefield and claim bonuses to hit.
Prioritized Efficiency
Leagues of Votann armies grant Leagues of Votann units one of two abilities: Hostile Acquisition or Fortify Takeover. Which of these abilities is active will change depending on how many Yield Points (YP) the Leagues of Votann player has.
At the start of the battle, your units start with Hostile Acquisition until the start of your next command phase. At the end of your command phase, if you have less than 7 YP your units have Hostile Acquisition until the start of your next command phase. At the end of your command phase if you have 7+ YP, your units have Fortify Takeover.
When your units have Hostile Acquisition, each time they attack an enemy unit on an objective they get +1 to hit as well as being able to reroll advance and charge rolls.
When your units have Fortify Takeover, each time they make an attack while they are in range of an objective you control they get +1 to hit. Also each time an attack targets your non-vehicle units, if the Strength is higher than your unit’s toughness, -1 to wound (and this applies everywhere, not just on objectives).
Gaining Yield Points
At the end of each player’s command phase you gain 1 YP if you control an objective in your deployment zone. Starting in the 2nd Battle Round, you gain 1 additional YP if you control an objective outside your deployment zone, 1 YP for controlling 2 or more objectives outside your deployment zone, and 1 YP if you control more objectives than your opponent. These additional YP generate in both player’s command phase, so they can quite quickly snowball with some builds.
There are additional ways to gain YP and lots of ways to spend them in the codex, planning ahead on which of the two abilities you need will be a critical skill, since which ability you have is determined at the end of your command phase.
Impact
The good news about this is that it will often provide you with +1 to Hit, which softens the blow of losing Grudge Tokens, and unlike some versions of this effect the opponent won’t be able to play around it all the time, because in the mid-game you can pivot to driving it based on your objective control. It encourages you to roll up on your nearest No Man’s Land objective in force, which luckily the Land Fortress is pretty much the perfect tool for. Re-rolling Advances early on helps your slower units position too, and that’s especially good with the Sagitaur’s Blistering Advance, helping mitigate the loss of Scout on it somewhat. The durability boost on your units once it flips over is fine too, though not working on Vehicles holds it back a bit, because you are very much going to be running a minimum of two Land Fortresses here. You can also build up points fast, especially in some detachments, though you do need them – the army suffers a little from various effects having a YP cost stuck on them that would probably just work in other factions, but you can at least use this to try and pivot back to Hostile if you want it.
Where this is lacking compared to the old mechanic is in the lack of any Wound boosts, putting a lot more of an onus on units to do the heavy lifting on their own. The outcome of this is mixed – the good news is that quite a few weapons did get better at murdering the foe, but mid-weight stuff will struggle more to really contribute against hull skew lists. Our take is that this is certainly pretty good, and seems to flow well from our testing, but it’s complex enough that it’ll take a while to be sure.
Detachments
Leagues of Votann armies have access to six detachments (five in this codex, plus the Hearthband detachment from Grotmas ‘25). The two detachments that look the strongest are Needgaârd Oathband and Brandfast Oathband. Needgaârd has the great stratagems that players who have played the Index version of the army will be very familiar with, and Brandfast has a solid detachment rule and one of the craziest stratagems ever. You can find out more of these in our series of Detachment Focuses that you can see linked below:
The annoyingly-named Needgaârd Oathband – annoying because that circumflex over the second a will mess up your searches for this in the Warhammer 40k app – is more or less the “basic” Detachment for the army. The benefits here are broad, and the detachment rule gives you 1 YP each time you destroy an enemy unit.
This Detachment is focused on Hernkyn, and units in the Detachment can pin enemy units by focusing fire on them from multiple sources, reducing their movement and charge rolls.
Another Detachment with a circumflex in the name, this one is your Beserk-focused Detachment. It gives Beserks the battleline keyword (this really only means you can take six units of them now), and the rules benefit a mix of Beserks and Earthshakers.
I dare you not to see “breakfast” every time you look at this name. This Detachment is transport-focused, giving your Infantry ranged attacks SUSTAINED HITS 1 while they’re wholly within 6” of a Transport.
The Fyrefest Detachment is all about your Memnyr units, in particular the new Steeljacks. This Detachment gives you 1 YP for each objective marker you control outside of your Deployment Zone with an Iron-Master or Memnyr Strategist on it, and in the Shooting phase you can spend 1 YP to re-roll hit rolls of 1 with a Brokhyr, Steeljacks, or Arkanyst unit.
The Grotmas Detachment is still around, and it’s built to support your Hearthguard units. Though with the state of those datasheets and the way this Detachment now just doesn’t do much for them, we think this one will stay on the shelf. (Elf on a shelf, Dwarf on a wharf?)
Datasheets
The Leagues of Votann had a small but reasonable set of units following their launch in late ninth edition, adding a new unit along the way from Kill Team in the Hernkyn Yaegirs. With the release of this book the faction is adding eight new units, though four of those come from two dual kits – the two flavors of Steeljacks and the alternate ways to build the Kapricus kit. This much-needed boost to their unit counts gives them a bit more variety – and it doesn’t hurt that the new units are pretty playable.
New Datasheets
Three of the new datasheets in the book are characters, and two of the remaining five come from a pair of dual-build kits.
Buri Aegnirssen
The new Epic Hero in the mix, Buri is a melee monster fuelled by pure spite, making him the most relatable character in the new book. He comes with a statline similar to Uthar’s, but packs an extra point of Toughness (6) to show off what a tough bastard he is, and this is further emphasized by his Grudge-fueled Fortitude ability, which lets him stand back up the first time he’s killed with full wounds if you can roll a 2+. He’s also got a surge move – D6+2” after he loses a wound in the shooting phase – and he can use that to move into combat. Which is good because that’s where he shines – his spear is very solid, giving him 5 attacks at S12, AP-3, 3 damage in strike mode (with precision, hitting on 2+), and his sweep dropping 10 attacks at S6 AP-2, 1 damage. Those are solid numbers for punching up, and being able to wound big knights on a 3+ is pretty solid, and gives you a reliable way to punch your way through a wounded target if your Hekatons can’t finish it off.
If there’s a downside to Buri, it’s that he can’t join any units – he’s purely a solo piece. The good news is that he has Lone Operative and Stealth, so he’s well equipped to avoid catching strays until it’s time for him to get the drop on some unsuspecting unit.
Memnyr Strategist
Beep boop, it’s time for the Ironkin to shine. The Memnyr Strategist entirely exists to prop up the rest of the army (he has a whopping one pistol shot and one melee attack). It can join a Steeljack unit, and comes with a couple neat abilities. Once per battle round you can reduce Overwatch or Heroic Intervention that targets its unit to 0CP. Additionally at the end of your command phase before you determine which YP ability you have, for each objective you control that has one or more Strategist on it, you can spend or gain 1 YP. So takes a little planning on positioning your Strategist ahead of time, but being able to manipulate your YP early will be very helpful over the course of a game. Plenty of YP abilities cost two points as well, so being able to have two to play with in your first turn is really useful, and all that takes is starting this guy on a point.
Arkanyst Evaluator
Hey Kin, do you like CHARGIN YUR LAZER?! Well I have good news, the Arkanyst Evaluator is here with a shiny new toy, and looking to try it out on your foes. This character unit is the opposite of the Strategist; he exists only to shoot. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true; he can mess with YP a little. So anyway, his gun has three modes, very similar to how traditional plasma style weapons work. First profile is only 12” range with Rapid Fire 1 with three shots hitting on 2s at S8 AP-1 1D, one might say the profile you’ll never use, because it isn’t fun. The second profile is still three shots, but now at 18” range with Rapid Fire 2 at S8 AP-2 2D, with Hazardous; okay, getting interesting. The third profile is still three shots, at 24” Rapid Fire 3 at S8 AP-3 3D, with Hazardous that fails on a 1-3. Now, six shots within 12” at AP-3 for flat 3 damage is pretty swell…but wait, there’s more.
Remember how I said he can mess with YP? Well, once per turn in your shooting phase one of your Evaluators can spend 1 YP when he is selected to shoot. Until the end of the phase his gun is Sustained Hits 1, and if you kill an enemy unit you gain 2 YP. So now you also get some sweet extra hits out of that super charged laser shot.
You want to know something else cool? This guy also gets Lone Operative if he is within 3” of another Votann Infantry unit that doesn’t have Lone Operative. So while he is being unsafe with super charging the weapon, he can be safe from enemy return fire. Nice. He also has Deadly Demise 1, which is an extremely funny little design flourish. Only being able to go super mode with one of these probably means that you only take one, but that one seems pretty great, brutalising any elite infantry or scout vehicles you point him at.
Ironkin Steeljacks
Steeljacks come in two loadouts with separate datasheets – Heavy Volkanite Disintegrators and Melee weapons. Coming in units of three or six this means that you can take up to 36 of these ancient machines in a single list. And while that might be overkill, Steeljacks are definitely the stand-out unit of the new bunch. Both sets come with 5” movement, T6, and a 2+ save, plus three wounds each, giving the unit a beefy, Meganob-esque profile. Where they differ is in their weapon loadout and battlefield role:
Heavy Volkanite Disintegrators: The shooty version of the unit packs heavy volkite disintegrators, 24” guns that fire 6 shots at S6, AP-1, 1 damage, hitting on 4+ with [DEVASTATING WOUNDS]. That’s pretty nasty! On top of that, when they fire Overwatch, they hit on 5+, or 4+ if your army is in Fortify Takeover mode. That’s very good and an obvious combo with the Memnyr Strategist, who gives you a free Fire Overwatch Stratagem once per battle round and the ability to easily manipulate your YP. The Preymark Crest wargear add-on for the Theyn gives them [PRECISION] when firing at targets within range of objective markers when they score critical wounds. (Note: the enemy unit doesn’t have to control the objective for this.)
As a melee backup, the shooty steeljacks have plasma knives, giving them 2 attacks each hitting on 3+ at S6, AP-2, 1 damage – not terrible, but not something you want to rely on.
Curie: This unit is without a doubt the stand-out in the codex. Cheap, durable, and lots of guns. They’re still quite slow, but can go in the Hekaton Land Fortress and are Infantry so aren’t terribly restricted by the battlefield. Their ability to Overwatch on 4+ when in Fortify Takeover is very potent and when combined with several of the detachments in this book become a unit to be feared. The Precision on Critical Wounds is pretty funny since their guns also have Devastating Wounds which means each 6 to wound is just a mortal wound on a character they can see in an attached unit.
Melee Weapons: The fighty version of Steeljacks come with Plasma Swords and Autoch-pattern bolters. The swords give them six attacks each, hitting on 3+ at S6 AP -2, 1 damage, and they can swap out their swords for Concussion Gauntlets, dropping to 3 attacks and hitting on 4+ but at S10, AP-2, 2 damage – a worthwhile trade-off most of the time. They have the same Preymark Crest ability as their shooty kin.
The melee Steeljacks have the Merciless Eradication ability, which forces enemy units falling back from them to take a Desperate Escape test, and if they’re battle-shocked, the test is with an additional -1 penalty. This is just OK.
Curie: These guys are decidedly meh when compared to their shooty counterparts at the same cost. Their melee feels anemic at only 3A hitting on 4’s – They’re only slightly better than Hearthguard with concussion gauntlets and for a comparable cost you have a unit that can also shoot.
Shane: See I think I’d want these guys with swords, you have the same maximum damage output as fists, but you have more reliable hit rolls combo-ed with sheer quantity of attacks. If you have a +1 to hit bonus at all, you are hitting on 2s with sustained. They do lose out if they are trying to cut up T12 stuff, but they just look wayyyyyyyyyyyy cooler.
Curie: Thankfully we don’t have that much T12 out there – but the prevalence of T10 does make me a little concerned about the viability of the swords.
Cthonian Earthshakers
The new Votann mortar crew like to do things the hard way – instead of lobbing their shots over walls, they shoot underground drill missiles that burrow up under their targets. Earthshakers come in units of two, and each one has 4” movement, T6, with 6 Wounds and OC 2. The mortar here can come in one of two flavors. Both with [BLAST, HEAVY, INDIRECT FIRE]:
- Breacher Ordnance go 24” and do D6+1 shots at S10, AP-1, 2 damage, hitting on 5+.
- Tremor Shells go 36” and fire D6+4 shots at S6, AP-1 1 damage, also hitting on 5+.
If you go with the Tremor shells then In the Shooting phase, after you fire, you can pick a unit that you hit, and that unit has to take a Battle-shock test at -1. On the other hand if you opt for Breacher Ordnance, the unit can use its Geomantic Hunters ability, which twice per game lets you re-roll Wound rolls for a phase.
This is… a mixed bag. Hitting on 5+ isn’t great, and while Heavy offsets the -1 you’ll eat from shooting at an indirect target, it still means you’re only hitting with a third of your shots unless you can stack an additional +1 to hit from Prioritised Efficiency. And even then, your bigger hurdle is going to be range: At 24” for your D2 mode and 36” for your tremor shells, these will absolutely be possible to out-range in a way that standard mortars aren’t when they have 48” range. With 36” of range you can typically sit on your home objective and hit any objective in No Man’s Land but with 24” you’ll mostly be covering the middle of the battlefield. And in that sense, my take is that the breacher ordnance is just a better option, with the higher wound chances and 2-damage outweighing the benefit of three extra shots and forcing a battleshock test.
Wings: Disagree here – I don’t think the heavier gun does enough to be a thing you want, whereas 36” to drop a Battle Shock test somewhere seems like decent utility from a unit I’m parking on my home objective, and more shots means it’s slightly better at killing elves, something that obviously shapes my consideration substantially. I’m not convinced you take either at their current price tag, but if I was going to take one it would be the tremor build.
Kapricus Defenders
The new Kapricus kit comes in two variants: The Defender is a gunwagon, coming in units of 1-2 and carrying a heavy weapon. These buggies move 12” with FLY, and have a moderately tough profile: T7, 7 wounds, and a 4+ save, with OC 2 and the SMOKE keyword. What they lack in durability however, they make up for in movement: These have Scouts 9” and can shoot-and scoot – Opportunistic Manoeuvre lets them move up to D6” in the Shooting phase after they’ve shot, and afterward they aren’t eligible to charge. This isn’t a ton of movement, but it’s enough for you to nose out around a wall, pop a shot or two off, then push back behind it and into safety.
Defenders come with a Magna-Rail cannon and twin autocannon, but can trade their magna-rail for a HYLas rotary cannon. The Magna Rail is a S14, AP-4, D3+3 damage 1-shot gun with [HEAVY and DEVASTATING WOUNDS], while the Rotary Cannon is 6 shots at S6, AP-1, 2 damage with [SUSTAINED HITS 1]. Both are OK – the kind of thing you want to double or triple up on in order to have more reliability than a single-shot gun is going to give, especially if your target isn’t on an objective. That said, the real value is being cheap and fast: they give you a ton of movement and flexibility, and the gun being there is just an added bonus.
Kapricus Carrier
The transport version of the buggy is a DEDICATED TRANSPORT that can hold five Hernkyn Yaegir models, with a rule that allows you to split your squads into two units of five models. That’s a great deal, since the Yaegirs provide a ton of value as Infiltrators but a lot less in units of ten. The Carrier effectively lets you take two units of five at 45 points each, and while it costs 75 points to do this, it provides enough value on its own that this is worth considering.
How does it provide that value? Great question. The Carrier has the same 12” movement, T7, W7, 4+ save, OC 2 profile as the Defender, but comes with Firing Deck 5, a twin autocannon, and an extra autocannon, both of which fire S7 shots at AP-1, 2 damage. The Carrier also has Scouts 9”, so while you’ll lose Infiltrate on half of your Yaegirs, you get a solid compromise out of Scouts.
On top of all that, the Carrier has the Scanner Uplinks ability: In your shooting phase, after a Carrier shoots, you can pick a non-MONSTER, non-VEHICLE enemy unit that it hit. Until the start of your next turn, that enemy unit is suppressed, and when it makes attacks, it gets -1 to its hit rolls. With six autocannon shots, chances are very good you’ll score at least one hit on something, and while it won’t help you against knights or vehicles, it can be absolutely devastating to units like Wraiths or Meganobz that really, really do not like to take a -1 penalty to hit.
Updated Datasheets
The Leagues of Votann Index had 13 datasheets, and 12 of these have changed — some substantially, while others have just had minor tweaks to reflect the changes to the army rule. There are also several weapons carried across multiple units that were adjusted, listed below:
- One change that is carried across all of the units is that any graviton weapon (such as Thunderkyn’s Graviton blast cannon) now have the ANTI-VEHICLE 3+ and ANTI-MONSTER 3+ abilities, from the ANTI-VEHICLE 2+ that they had before. Nice change, slight downside against vehicles but now they don’t feel useless against Tyranids or Chaos Daemons
- Bolt cannons (twin or otherwise) have been upgraded from SUSTAINED HITS 1 to SUSTAINED HITS 2
- Volkanite Disintegrators have had their range increased from 18” to 24”
- MATR autocannons (Hekaton Land Fortress, Sagitaur) have gained SUSTAINED HITS 1
- Weavefield Crests (Hearthkyn Theyns, Hearthguard Hesyrs) now give the bearer’s unit a 5+ invulnerable as compared to the 4+ invulnerable save granted to the bearer, which seems way better.
- CONVERSION still gives Critical Hits on a hit of 4+ when outside of half range, but now all CONVERSION weapons have LETHAL HITS instead of SUSTAINED HITS D3. Importantly, if you can somehow give them Sustained Hits on top of this, that triggers on the 4+ as well, providing some routes to get some serious killing power out of these units.
With that out of the way, the datasheet changes are as follows
- Uthar the Destined is no longer Destined (lost the ability to set all damage allocated to him to 1), his Ancestral Fortune ability now requires him to spend a Yield Point to change a hit/wound/saving throw to a 6, and finally the big upgrade – Grim Efficiency is now a 12” once-per-battle-round stratagem cost discount for any friendly unit. This makes him pretty much an auto-take.
- Kahl’s Grim Efficiency has been replaced with Seized Opportunity – which generates 1 YP once per phase when the bearer’s unit kills an enemy unit. The mass gauntlet also gained a pip of AP putting it to 3 attacks at S8 AP-3 D3.
- Grimnyr’s got an interesting rework – now their Fortify ability gives the unit they’re leading a 5+ Feel No Pain – which is odd because it replaced +1 Toughness it had previously. This bucks the trend of Feel No Pain abilities becoming less common in the game with recent releases, and isn’t even as exciting as it sounds since Hearthkyn have a native 6+ anyway.
- The Brokhyr Iron-master gained the ability to heal Steeljacks, their Graviton weapons were reworked as above, Multispectral Visor now gives ranged wound re-rolls of 1 (previously +1 to hit while leading), and they also gain Lone Operative while within 3” of any friendly Vehicle or Steeljacks unit. Finally the Ironkin Assistant lost a wound, now sitting at W1.
- The Einhyr Champion now gives their unit +1 to advance and charge rolls while leading, and both of their melee weapons gained a pip of AP – the axe is now 6A at 6/3/2 while the Mass Hammer is 3A at 12/3/d6+1.
- Hearthkyn Warriors were one of the units to see the most substantial rework – they now no longer have wargear options/abilities and instead have a 6+ Feel No Pain natively and re-roll hit rolls of 1 from their Panspectral Scanner ability (previously Ignores Cover). The Kin melee weapons (2A at 5/2/2) were replaced by Plasma Knives (2A at 4/2/1) but can be taken in addition to the special weapons. The Theyn’s pistol was changed, and he can now take a ranged weapon in addition to their melee weapon (2A at 5/2/2).
- Brokhyr Thunderkyn have seen substantial changes as well – a reduction in wounds to 2W, and they now give Ignore Cover against one unit they hit in the shooting phase. Their Graviton blast cannon is now 3A at 5/2/3 with the graviton upgrade, changed from d6 at 5/2/2, as well as gaining 6” of range to 24”. The most notable change though is the SP conversion beamer which went from 1A at 7/1/3 SUSTAINED HITS d3 to 2A at 7/2/3 LETHAL HITS. Once you start adding Sustained to these with abilities, they’re one of the best damage dealers in the book.
- Einhyr Hearthguard lost a point of Toughness, now sitting at T5. They also lost their conditional -1 to be wounded, which was replaced by re-rolling 1’s to hit when shooting the closest enemy unit. Exoarmour grenade launchers took a big hit – going from d6 at 4/0/1 BLAST to d3 at 3/0/1 BLAST while the EtaCarn plasma gun strength was reduced from S8 to S7 while gaining Rapid Fire. Their concussion gauntlets lost a pip of strength, going down to 2A at 8/2/2 while the Concussion hammer is now a Graviton Hammer – 3A at 9/1/3.
- Cthonian Beserks received one of the oddest reworks in this book – they went from T5 W2 6+ save with a 5+ Feel No Pain to T6 W1 5+ save with a 4+ Feel No Pain. This reduction in effective wounds (from 3 to 2) is also coupled with the Mole launcher wargear no longer giving an additional wound and attack to the bearer. The mole launcher has also had its range reduced and now makes a non-monster/vehicle unit ineligible to overwatch. Cyberstimms now have a +1 to the fight on death roll if you are in Fortify Takeover. Concussion mauls were reworked to be 3A at 5/2/3 with the graviton Anti- treatment, while Plasma axes lost their sweep profile and are now 3A at 7/2/3. The concussion gauntlet was reworked to being 4A at 8/2/2 while keeping Twin-linked.
- Hernkyn Pioneers saw only slight tweaks – their Outflanking Mag-riders ability now requires them to be wholly within 9” of one or more battlefield edges, and they kept their wargear options though they have been reworked to line up with the other codex changes (panspectral gives rerolls of 1, comms is unchanged, and the rollbar searchlight is now ignore all hit mods. Their plasma knives are now consistent across the codex – 2A at 4/2/1 in melee. They do lose the fourth wound on the models with the big gun though, so if you’re up against stuff with flat three damage weapons they’re considerably less durable.
- Our Poor Sagitaurs got done dirty – they were reduced in toughness to T9 and are also down to OC2 from OC3. Their missile ranges were increased to 36” but the Sagitaur missile launcher strength was reduced to S10. The HYLas beam cannon lost all special rules (though it did go to d6+1 damage), RIP casino cannon.
- Hekaton Land Fortresses continue to live up to the name and function as a fortress on wheels. They have had their Fire Support ability replaced with MultiCOG targeting which allows them to ignore all ranged hit roll and ballistic skill modifiers while also gaining re-roll 1’s through their pan-spectral scanners (at the cost of losing Ignore Cover). The Heavy magna-rail cannon gained an additional shot and is now 2A at 18/4/d6+4 while the Cyclic ion cannon was downgraded (a gun that was never taken will continue to be taken even less. Meanwhile the SP Heavy Conversion Beamer kept CONVERSION and went to 4A at 10/2/4 LETHAL HITS – a solid sidegrade from the previous weapon. One small tweak to their transport ability is that now Exoframe (Thunderkyn) models only take up two spots instead of three so a full unit of six can now ride shotgun, and it now can take 14 models instead of 12.
How They Will Play
This is one of the hardest codexes to evaluate that we’ve seen in a long time. There are a ton of small changes here that amount to big shifts in how the army plays, and it’s hard to get a full read on all of it unless you’ve played a game or two with the army. One of the key changes here – the loss of Judgement Tokens – is largely mitigated by a combination of the new army rule giving bonuses to hit against targets on objectives and the changes to the Pan-spectral Scanner wargear, which gives Warriors, Pioneers, and the Hekaton Land Fortress re-rolls on 1s to hit, giving them a significant boost (though not quite as good as +1 to hit), and Stratagems like HunTR’s Mark giving you a source of re-rolls for any unit in the Shooting phase. Those rerolls are crucial as you won’t always be able to depend on having key targets within range of objectives to give you the +1 to hit the army really needs to get things done. The bigger loss from the Judgement Token to Yield Point change, is losing the +1 to wound bonus, which made most any weapon good at dishing damage onto high toughness and making units like the Hearthguard do insane amounts of damage to infantry bricks.
With this in mind, there should be more emphasis on picking the right tool for the right job (like using anti 3+ or lethal to deal with vehicle/monster), but list staples like transports will still be a main part of play. You still have an army that can be hyper mobile with transports, and scouting units that move 12”, with a focus on shooting and a smattering of high damage melee. These tools allow the army to have high scoring potential and can still jail an enemy.
Uthar is probably going to be a mandatory add now as well, since his reduction in CP usage is the only way to offset the loss of Bonus CP that the old index Hearthband used to get.
The hardest part for players will be having to shift their mindset to keeping track of and actively managing Yield Points throughout the game and what that will mean for your army rule benefit.
Final Thoughts
Shane: Initially I was a bit sticker-shocked with the nerfs to durability (especially the wound drop for Beserks), but with all the new rules and abilities this may end up being a wash. Having a reason to put my sweet Uthar on the table again feels real good, I love my little angry Chaos Headtaker. Overall I am optimistic that this army will still be competitive, there will just be a slight change in what the army looks like. Also I greatly look forward to Conversion Beamers that Crit on 4s with both lethal and sustained. PEW PEW LAZERS!
TheChirurgeon: Having seen these in a game now it’s clear that the loss of grudge tokens just doesn’t matter all that much – it’s made up for more by the ability to get re-rolls and extra shots in a number of places, and that’s before you start using the army rule to attack units on objectives. If there’s a gripe I have with this book it’s that the Prioritised Efficiency mechanic requires a lot of bookkeeping, and you’ll need to stay on top of it because those points matter a lot, particularly when you’re spending them. It seems that most armies will want to hit that Fortify Takeover threshold pretty quickly, since -1 to wound is a much better bonus than the Advance and Charge bonus, but getting there before round 3 may be very difficult into some armies without good manipulation – and even then, you don’t necessarily want to park a Memnyr on an objective when you need your Steeljacks shooting.
I think this is a fine update of the army that adds some cool new wrinkles while not resetting the power curve of the game. That’s largely good news, though it does mean that they’ll likely feel anemic coming out of the gate into an overpowered army like Death Guard that’s built to kill them. That said, they may have a solid matchup into Knights, where they can stack lots of smaller shooting platforms and bodies in the same manner as GSC to take down big knights without presenting many easy, juicy targets in return. If there’s an aspect of this book that I really dislike, it’s Hearthguard, where they just feel overlooked and bad, particularly next to the new Steeljacks. To add insult to injury, their Detachment no longer does anything for the unit.
Curie: Agreed on everything said above – I am hoping that they put out an errata to Hearthband because as-is it does next to nothing for the army. They’ve done an excellent job of updating the army from what had become a fairly stale index that revolved around Hekatons, Beserks, and Pioneers. Even considering the disparity between the two variants of Steeljacks, the new units all add an interesting new toolpiece to the Leagues.
The very positive part of this codex is it feels like it bucks the trend of the last few codexes (Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Chaos Knights) showing late edition power creep. There are definitely some very strong combos in the codex, but it feels fairly costed and has some definite challenges to overcome (finding S11+ weapons is particularly challenging). All in all I’m very much looking forward to seeing where this book settles in as there are now many different ways to play!
Wings: With so many keen Votann players on staff I’ve mostly been an ouside observer with this one, but what I’ve seen is initial pessimism get flipped over towards a reasonably positive mood as the review process has gone on. For my part, I think the book is cool and there’s plenty going on with the Detachments, though a few units have been a little hard done by. In theory this should open the faction up to be much more diverse, but I guess my only holistic worry is that once you hit the combo of Sustained Hits 2 on conversion beamers, anything that doesn’t let you do that pales in comparison, so we may see an over-weighting towards the Detachments that enable this early on. However, the two Detachments I’ve covered for our focuses both have some really cool stuff going on, so my hope is that there’s good variety on the horizon for the Votann.
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