Buy low, sell high

By Theo Kik-Jansen

The relative value of units rise and fall with the eb and tide of the meta. A new GHB means some units see their competative advantage slink away, while others see a big boost in usefulness due to the new rules. Let’s take a look at who GW acidentally buffed by throwing darts at some rules ideas!

Credit: @agesomething

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Skragrot and casting value based damage

Holy shit! Like this guy needed a buff! But he sure did get one. He’s not a Locus, but that really doesn’t matter for why his stock has risen even more. The trick is in his warscroll spell combined with primal dice.

His spells power is determined by the casting role result. With one primal dice that gives an average of 11,5, resulting in an average of 7,5 MW. Or 10 on two primal dice, spiking up to a potential 30MW if the moon really has you in his gaze.

The other trick Skraggy has up his sleeve is dying. As he will be a prime target to get nuked off the board, he’ll have one last gift to the moon: He opens up the Reprisal BT, as he is a warlord. It’s a small comfort, but very cunning indeed!

A good example of the casting value based damage to look out for is the Warsong revenant. A similar sort of spell on his warscroll, but situationally even better:

The MWs happen on 5+’s but it hits everything in a massive 18” diameter. And as he can cast it through a wyldwood or portals, it’s not unthinkable that he hits an entire army with 5MW per unit on 4D6 on average. That’s pretty insane damage in some situations.

Bonus- and 3d6 casters and overpower spells

GW has attempted to keep the power of primal dice in check with their exclusion of reroll mechanics. But as with any rule, we’re looking for what ISN’T mentioned. One of those things is 3D6 casters. The reliability these casters get to is staggering. Remember that 4D6 give you an average roll of 76% to roll a 12 or better! More importantly it gets you a dice up on primal unbinders, massively decreasing the chance of getting unbound.

The other thing we can read is that we are free to modify the casting rolls, as long as we don’t reroll it. This means plus to cast gives us a fantastic way to limit the use of primal dice, to limit our exposure to miscasts.

Finally, some spells in the game give a boosted variant when casting above a certain value. Luckily the casting roll including the primal dice is considered unmodified. That means it count’s towards these effects. Armies like Soulblight Gravelords on every spell and Gitz with Nikkit-Nikkit! can benefit from this mechanic. Flesh-eater Courts have spells that get boosted on modified roles op 10+.

Null Myriad and spell ignore

If there ever was a moment in time where Null Myriad has a place, it is now! With both this GHB dropping and Seraphon gearing up in the meta, a 2+ spell ignore is a bit good, innit? The emphasis seems to be on wizards and the meta is littered with great damage spells. It also means that you limit your reliance on primal dice for unbinds. OBR has plenty of powerful spells it wants to dish out with.

There is plenty of spell ignore to be found. From Troggs and Naked dwarfs to the new Nullstone pebble. It’s hard to deny the utility boost these rules get when magic damage gets turned up to 11.
Similar story for auto unbinds. In some of the most crucial situation, it can save a unit from getting blitzed, because spell now just have that potential, with the limits taken away in some cases.

A special mention here for Kragnos. Being able to ignore spells based on casting value is an amazing ability obviously. His weakness remains mortal wounds, but when everybody techs into making them come from spells, his stonks do rise. Skraggy and Kraggy might be going to war again!

Stabbas and cheap-ass-shit units

The units being objectively boosted the most in terms of power output per point, are shit units. Huh? Let me explain, it’s called Hoarfrost and has been de talk of the town since it was previewed. The common rebut was “yeah, but it casts on an 8”… yeah, primal dice bitch

It changes the characteristic of hit, wound or rend values to 1, 2 or 3. “oh man, my Chaos Knights ‘ll hit on 2’s”. No you idiot! Stabbas will do 17 mortal wounds! Ingredients: 60 Stabbas, a loonboss and sporesplattas. Thanks to the enhanced AoA on the loonboos, stabbas will do a MW on a wound roll of a 6. Don’t worry though, it’s balance by a hitroll of 5+. Yeah, unless it’s a 2+! Even if you roll a 3, you’ll have +1 to hit. The splattes give them an extra attack and you finish you Chaos Knight smoothy with a nice thorough blend. Soup’s ready!

In general the worse your unit’s statline is, the better this spell gets (assuming the units are prices accordingly). Profiles with one statline work the best. Couple of stonks that are on the way to the moon:

Rend boost: High attacks no rend: Plague monks, Ghouls, Savage orruk Morboys,  Spite-revenants, witch aelves.
Roll boost: Hitting or wounding on 4s: Squig herd, Saurus warriors, Grave guard.

Calvin: Small Wizards that know all Lore Spells

Boy oh boy is this a good time to know all your lore spells. Take, for instance, the humble Disciples of Tzeentch Gaunt Summoner who just flat knows ALL the spells in the Lore of Fate–they could take a middling spell from the Lore of Change that’s probably getting cast by Kairos, or now they can just take one of the awesome Lore of the Frost spells instead! On top of that, if you go second you can bump the Gaunt Summoner from a 2 cast to a 3 cast wizard. It’s all upside here, which means their points and any similar wizards points are probably going to shoot through the roof.

Calvin: Weird, usually unplayed subfactions

Honestly, this is what has me most excited. Most armies in the game have one, maybe two subfactions that get played because without added rules, they’re objectively the best–Boulderhead/Meatfist in Ogors, Helon/Ymetrica in Lumineth, and so on.

Now? The world is your oyster–Bloodgullet Butchers getting to use their extra spell from the Lore of Frost and occasionally become two cast wizards is on the menu. Badsnatchers re-rolling a dice to fish for a 6? Sign me up. Hosts Arcanum to auto-unbind Warsong Bombs casting on a 90? Yes, please.

This kind of rules design is going to crack the meta wide-open, and I’m all for it.

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There are so many more units to be listed here, but the magic happens when the devs limited the output by constraining the unit on one of these characteristics. It truly blows up some mediocre units that are cheap as chips, to becoming absolute blenders.

Credit for the cover image to Games Workshop

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