Slap in the Face … or … Look into the Future?

[Dracos]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/01/13/war-zone-nachmund-vigilus-alone-unlocks-a-sneaky-phobos-clad-army-of-renown/

 

Posting from my phone, but this is just … I don’t know what it is yet I guess.

 

 

Just after half of what made Raven Guard cool and unique for a half minute in 8th nerfed, and at the start of 9th through watering our abilities down by sharing them as universal rules or nerfing said rules with smaller boards functional terrain minus to be hit limits and flat out nerfs of the bat … this just feels more like a slap to me … today at least. Sure now let’s let every Marine Chapter do what Raven Guard is suppose to be known for … but better than the Raven Guard do it today.

[Lord_Ikka]

What exactly does this take away from Raven Guard?  Phobos armored troops are supposed to be the vanguard and scouting elements of Primaris forces, so how do these rules diminish Raven Guard? Seems like you could just add in this army of renown to RG tactics and make them even stealthier. Asking seriously, as I'm not a RG player.

[War of the Eagle]

Well assuming the stealthy ability is in addition to chapter tactics then it will bring no benefit to ravenguard who have stealthy baked in. Also the relic is very similar to a relic we already have. I find the lookout sir ignore strat pretty useful for Ravenguard super doc tho.

[SvenIronhand]

These don't stack with Chapter Tactics, I think. 

[tychobi]

All the toys in triplicate is that not the Space Mahreeen way?  

[WrathOfTheLion]

According to the article, it says

 

 

As such, they don’t use the usual Chapter Tactics – instead, Vigilus Alone gives them their own unique set of rules to represent their training and strategies.

 

So if I read that correctly, Raven Guard wouldn't be a worse version by rules that overlap, as you wouldn't get the Raven Guard chapter tactic (or custom chapter tactics, or any other named chapter tactic) when using this army of renown.

[Lord_Ikka]

I get that half of the RG chapter tactic is part of the Phobos renown army- don't really agree with that but it might mean that an update of the RG tactics will come. The relic armor is slightly different, more useful for a Reiver LT I would suspect, where the RG is more useful for a Phobos Captain who needs to be more tanky. The to Hit bonus is interesting (don't know what they mean by firing from the hip, unless its just a +1 to Hit if the unit has moved), as is the consolidation bonus (assuming that they are trying to make Reivers more useful). 

 

I wonder if you would get chapter strats, or if those are removed as well as the chapter tactics. 

[Dracos]

I know its a fair bit of speculation still but yeah the Tactics and Relics pretty much come off as a twisted copy of the Raven Guard stuff. So it doesn't do much of anything for us one way and everything but Master of Ambush the other. You could add Strike from the Shadows with that, but imo, SftS was watered down by the universal ability to put units in reserve using CP.

[Jaipii]

I am already looking forward to a new supplement (which have been quite a serious rumour). I'd imagine some of these Army of Renown rules or at least the ideas will find their way to a new supplement. The Codexes of late (Black Templars among them!) have had so many cool rules and upgrades that I am really looking forward what the Raven Guard will receive!

 

Just hoping they won't nerf the useful parts of our current supplement (namely the couple Warlord traits and Movement Stratagems), but level up the other stuff. :D

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

I know its a fair bit of speculation still but yeah the Tactics and Relics pretty much come off as a twisted copy of the Raven Guard stuff. So it doesn't do much of anything for us one way and everything but Master of Ambush the other. You could add Strike from the Shadows with that, but imo, SftS was watered down by the universal ability to put units in reserve using CP.

 

Another way to look at it - This new Army of Renown is a fun way to play with the models you own in a slightly different way. I imagine most marine players dont have enough Phobos stuff to run this rules set at any meaningful size - but I imagine most Raven Guard players probably do.

 

Also the new rules set could be an indicator of a handful of more Phobos releases coming our way (which would be great).

[superwill]

I'm assuming there's a bunch of stuff missing or unclear, because at the moment the WC preview suggested that we are losing access to 95% of the codex just to give infiltrators, incursors and reivers obsec (which.... what??) and to downgrade our already bad CT into an even worse version.

When I saw a surprise article for a marines Army of Renown I was soooo pumped. Then I saw it was for all Phobos, a particularly weak but super awesome niche of marines, and I was almost standing up and whooping. With each sentence of the preview a little bit of the excitement died, until by the end of the article it was completely dead and I was left feeling like it was worse than nothing because now we will never get an actually cool phobos army of renown.

 

Fingers totally crossed that the preview article was just the tip of the iceberg, and hopefully has even misrepresented a few things (such as redundant army bonuses, CT explanation, etc.)

[Stupidity]

I must admit this does seem like a slap but Il'l be happy enough if this just means they are releasing the Suppressor box finally and they get an alternative loadout or increased unit size. Suppressors would be great for RG if they weren't so limited. They just aren't worth using our stratagems on. Same problem with Eliminators really. 

[Xenith]

Armies of renown don't benefit from usual  faction rules, so stuff like crusher stampede dont get Leviathan hive fleet adaptation.

 

You will however get access to strats, traits and relics from the RG book, which I guess are more suited to Phobos units. 

[Dracos]

Love how everyone craps on space marines getting so much but seriously look at the difference in those two armies of reknown. Ones a GT winner the other ones a joke

[Kingnoname1]

Yea space marines might have like a couple hundred more options than any other army but one of those options is unoptimal so its basically the same thing.

[superwill]

Remember that brief six months where Space Marines were top tier (never anything like Drukhari or Admech recently, or Ynnari or Tau of old) and the whole Warhammer community lost their minds and still hasn't stopped shouting "GW posterboys" years later?

 

Yeah SM have lots of options (even removing the examples like ~8 different entries for captains), but that's largely because they took half of the factions in the game and rolled them into one codex with supplements. Now they can release something and sell it to half their fanbase. Actually kind of sucks for fans though, because those unique marine units were always the coolest ones in BA/DW/DA/SW and we rarely see those anymore. Meanwhile, other armies (mainly Chaos) have gone the opposite way and split one army into half a dozen totally separate armies.

 

Would I rather have 150 generic options that all are shared with half of the armies in the game, or would I rather have 40 unique Raven Guard units and still be able to ally in the other 100 odd units from other marine armies if I wanted them?

All the anti-marine sentiment in the community seems really bizarre to me. GW are regularly adding super cool and big updates to lots of armies. Yes primaris got added and that has been a big wave of new marines, but that is not really costing GW resources but actually funding the release of other armies and units.

 

In any case, I think it's still fair to say that when some armies (like Nids, who are already very competitive) are getting their armies of renown that are opening up even more competitive builds, when any faction (yes, including filthy marines) eventually receives their army of renown and finds it is a total flop they're allowed to feel disappointed.

Edited January 20, 2022 by superwill

[Helias_Tancred]

Looks like besides the Impulsor/Infiltrator kits as optimum troop choices, the rest of the Phobos line hasn't been big sellers? lol.

 

I agree with the OP, the presence of the Phobos line available to all marine chapters did pee on Raven Guard turf. If I were a Raven Guard player I'd be unhappy with it. I'd be hopeful that in our 9th edition codex supplement they will give us some chapter appropriate quality stuff to re-establish our niche.

 

Personally I've never been a fan of the Phobos concept that was introduced as part of the new primaris line. YMMV. 

[Helias_Tancred]

I also strongly believe in patterns, and an established pattern with previous 40k rule editions is a gradual trend to bloat. If it sells models they will go with bloat. Its been a pattern time after time.

[Dracos]

The funny thing is Helias, is that this just reinforces that Raven Guard are the best Gravis Force in the Astartes line. Which mind you I'm okay with but it sure is counter-intuitive to the lore.

[Helias_Tancred]

The funny thing is Helias, is that this just reinforces that Raven Guard are the best Gravis Force in the Astartes line. Which mind you I'm okay with but it sure is counter-intuitive to the lore.

 

lol true. Funny how that turns out.