Well 10th’s early access has been out for a bit now. As I am sure you have seen, the win rate is rather wild across the board, ranging from 25 percent all the way up to 65 percent. There is always going to be a low and a high in the competitive environment, but the gap is showing us some useful things to take away from 10th’s launch.
First, before we get started, this is not a rant about 10th’s balance system like last weeks news letter. Now that the initial problems have been pointed out and discovered it is time to look into the edition more and leave it up to GW to figure out what they are going to do about it. Overall, while I am invested (almost 3000 man hours now between the few of us!) heavily in Alternate 40k Rules, I still want to see the game and model line I love do well out in the wild. If I did not care for the game that much, this website would not be here!
With FW releasing their rules for their kits, we have a more complete picture of what to expect from 10th Edition as well. So far some things I am liking is each datasheet having a special ability. Some things I am not liking is the inconsistencies between the FW and the GW like units. It is absolutely fine from a game perspective, but I find it immersive breaking. A good example is my Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum).
The Basilisk hits on a 4+ with Heavy, but the Earthshaker Carriage Battery hits on a 5+ with Heavy. The points are significantly cheaper, but the inconsistent stats make it difficult to remember. And, as any guard player knows, that 1 worse BS makes the unit a tough choice to consider taking. 8th and 9th Edition were both brutal to the guard in that aspect, and it will likely stick to those players. For those of you who do not know, they both use the Earthshaker Cannon.
As for the rest of the FW units, they appear to be on a different scale of power with most of them appearing to be going the way of non-competitive. A few units are still strong, but most appear to be phasing out. This appears to be across all armies. This is not intended as a complaint, though as a collector of vintage models it does suck. Rather this is a sign of new units coming out soon as this happens with every edition. Just part of the business model they follow.
Performance of armies in 10th is showing some holes as mentioned in the opening. I think the biggest issue is the unique army abilities are difficult to point cost unless they are modifying stats or rules with set point cost on a per model basis like in our Alternate 40k Rules. As everyone knows, Eldar are cream of the crop for manipulating key dice rolls, where as other armies like the Tyranid are struggling to find a use for their abilities. For those of you playing 10th Edition competitively, the best thing I can suggest is finding what units are bringing the most fire power for the cheapest amount of points, with Anti Tank type weapons being the most critical as the new edition highly encourages Vehicle and Monster heavy lists.
There is tons of documentation out there from many people who play on a far more professional level of 10th than myself, and I recommend seeing their content for their hyper efficient lists and tactics.
As far as some generic tactics go that do apply really well in 10th I recommend the following. Mix your units to always have a corner behind another unit or terrain piece so you always get your cover bonus. During the game I played, it really made it hard to kill native Sv2+ units. Second, and this does not apply to all armies, but Sv2+ units are really solid. Leman Russ tanks, Baneblade variants, and others are far more likely to survive. There are some lists that you just cannot do a lot about like Eldar throwing Mortal Wounds everywhere on Turn 0, but as a general rule of thumb it seems like the best way to build your backbone.
From the Battle Reports I have been reading, mass infantry formations appear to be vulnerable. This is realistic, as high explosive weapons are designed to decimate such things, but it makes for a hard time fielding these units. At least from the Astra Militarum perspective anyways. The point support needed for them is just to high for their toughness and fire power to make it efficient compared to other armies. Smaller units are operating very well, grabbing objectives and then disappearing once their time is up on the table without taking away too many of your points. This also allows you to throw a lot of units into Reserve, showing up on any table edge not in the enemy deployment zone turn 2, or any table edge turn 3! Guardsman do not have to be super dangerous, just annoying and everywhere to keep the opponent distracted from destroying your tanks.
Each army is going to have its strengths and weaknesses. So many content creators are working hard to provide that information to you, and you should check them out! We should be able to test our Space Wolves Chapter Supplement for Alternate 40k Rules at the end of this week, and will continue to play 10th and develop our rules as we go along for anyone needing a change of pace (looking at you my old veteran players).
As always, happy wargaming!
Alternate 40k Rules 