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It's time to review my favourity Stunty boys - The Votann. The Votann are technically humans who have genetically modified themselves over generations and thus stand apart from the rest humanity by such a large degree that certain members of the Ordo Xenos classify them as aliens.

Anyway, if you did not know already, this is Warhammer 40,000 and the 10th edition rules have me salivating! This is the info we have gotten about the leagues. I have some of these guys and they will be joining my Grand Imperial Army as mercenaries!

I bought the launch box of the Votann... but I have assembled and painted none of them. LOOOOOOOL

Anyway, here is Votann in the 10th Edition of the game!

Eye Candy

That's the Greater Thurian League! Led by Uthar the Destined (the guy with the sword in the centre of the image) they are taking on the forces of Chaos!

Units of Cthonian Berserks charge into an Ork battleline! Supported by Hekaton Land Fortresses, their purging of the vile brutes shall be complete!

Army Rule

Pretty simple. If you hurt the Votann, they will hurt you back!

When a unit destroys a Votann unit, they gain a Judgement token. They can gain up till two and they cannot lose them!

Once a unit with a Judgement token on it is attacked by any Votann, the following happens to the attack:

1 Judgement token, the attack gets Plus 1 to Hit
2 Judgement tokens, the attack gets Plus 1 to Hit and Plus 1 to Wound.

Example:

A unit of Space Marine Primaris have successfully killed a unit of Votann. A unit of Hearthkyn Warriors shoot at them with 9 Autoch-pattern Bolters and 1 L7 Missile Launcher.

The bolters would hit on a 4+ but now hit on 3+. The L7 Missile would hig on 4+ on either blast or focussed, but will now hit on 3+

Detachment Rule - The Oathband

The Oathband Detachment targets a single unit in the enemy army to utterly destroy and they are rewarded when doing this earlier rather than later. At the start of the battle they select a unit, probably something they can see and hurt.

Thus unit starts the game with 2 Judgement tokens on it!

After that, when they destroy this unit, the Votann will gain CP (Command Points). The earlier you kill the unit, the more CP you get.

Command Points are used to do Stratagems and in 10th Edition armies no longer have the ability to start the game with 6 CP but gain but 1 CP per turn.

Basically I see this being used one of two ways:

Scenario 1:

You see a unit you can see and hurt and before you start your game, you select this unit. It gets 2 Judgement Tokens on it and you blast it with everything you have and gain that 3CP early in the game.

Now you have plenty CP to do Shenanigans.

Or

Scenario 2:

You target something big and valuable in your opponent's army and that unit starts the game vulnerable to your shooting and close combat. This might make the opponent really scared to use a unit where they would usually be far more aggressive with a unit.

This would be some big tank/monster/daemon or big tough units as well. Does he have a big squad of Terminators? Might be nice to have the Judgement Tokens on them BEFORE they start killing Votann units!

Unit Spotlight - Hearthkyn Warriors

The Hearthkyn have changed in an interesting way. They have lost a good armor save but they have gained a higher toughness.

These guys are the cornerstone of Votann armies as they will be the units that do most of the taking and holding of objectives while dishing out decent amounts of firepower. Not really meant for close combat, they will have a low amount of Space Marine type attacks in close combat (Space Marines without specialist weapons)

Their accuracy in shooting and combat have gone down. However, with Judgement tokens this will go up again.

Without seeing points costs it is difficult to see how they will fare. This faction was heralded as largely Over Powered so some sort of balancing seems fairly good.

As an example, at 24" range when these guys get hit by 10 bolter shots, 6-7 should hit but only 2 or so statistically wound the Hearthkyn. The Hearthkyn have a 4+ save so again statistically this mean 1x dead Warrior as they have 1W each.

Shooting back against a unit without Judgement tokens, with 20 shots at 24" range, yes you read THAT right. Autoch-pattern bolters basically rapid fire at full range. Hitting on 4+ would mean 10 hits and 5 wounds. Statistically, this is 2 wounds suffered and one dead Space Marine.

Tit for tat... still hard to guess at further implications without putting more of a real battle situation into the game. We shall see!

Also, there is no real way of knowing but it is LIKELY that the HQ, the Votan Kahl will have the ability to put 1 Judgement token on a unit every turn.

In that case the above example would have resulted in more wounds, possibly... but not yet statistically.

However, these units have more abilities. They have "Luck Has, Need Keeps" which makes an objective sticky. Meaning you keep it even when you walk away. Until an enemy takes it over.

They also refund a CP when using a Stratagem when they have a Comms Array.

Medipack gives them a 6+ Feel No Pain and Pan Spectral Scanner give them Ignores Cover.

Finally a Weavefield Crest grants the Bearer a 4+ Invulnerable save. This is on the unit commander, the Theyn, But gives them the opportunity to ward off some big attacks.

Unit Spotlight - Hekaton Land Fortress

Still equal to the new stats on a Land Raider, the Hekaton's Weapon options seems to be more balanced.

Before everyone was pretty much focussed on the Magna Heavy Rail Cannon that made this vehicle famous. It had the ability to delete who units of marines and terminators should it roll a 6 to Wound.

However, that's gone.

In its place the Magna-Rail has Devastating wounds and Heavy. Meaning 6's to Wound cause Mortal Wounds. This means no saves. it does not spread damage, but it does a massive D6+6 wounds! The Heavy ability gives it a +1 to hit when this vehicle stands still.

So say the target has 1 Judgement token on it?

4+ to Hot becomes 3+, the Hekaton remains Stationary and it becomes a 2+ to hit!

Now it is S18, this will get a 3+ to Wound on even Land Raiders and most of the toughest opponents. A 6 will wound anything, even if it have a Toughness of twice this weapon's Strength (unlikely, you would need T36!). You then cause 7-12 Mortal Wounds!

If it is not Mortal then on regular targets it is still taking down 4 points of armor and then doing all that damage.

However, I feel the other weapons are far more usable now. For main guns besides the Magna Rail, there is the Cyclic Ion Cannon and the SP Heavy Conversion Beamer.

The Ion Cannon puts out a massive amount of high strength Blasts with decent AP and Damage. This seems like a marine killer. D6+3 against a unit of Marines, gains 1 shot per 5 models. So D6+5 against a unit of 10 Marines. Thus 6-11 shots, hitting on 4+ regardless of movement, S9 so 3+ to wound marines. -2 to armor would give them a 5+ save or lose a marine!

The Beamer gains extra hits on a 4+ critical when the target is more than 12" away and deals even higher strength, decent AP and way more damage. This weapon could do up to 8 hits at S10 AP-2 and D4. Quite scary. At minimum it would be 4 hits. But even so, those do 4 Damage each and should they go through, something is going to die. Either light tanks or heavy infantry like Terminators.

Meanwhile the Magna-Rail is still a great Anti-tank/Monster option.

Again this unit can get the Ignores Cover ability and can also boost the damage output of the unit that disembarked from it when they hit the same unit... something I would definitely do...

Weapon Spotlight

Like the gun on the Hekaton, the SP Conversion Beamer is the Conversion rule, meaning Critical Hits are scored on a 4+ when the target is more than 12" away. This weapon has Sustained hits D3 meaning a Critical Hit (4+ instead of 6+ at range) scores an additional D3 hits!

You have to roll for it but one shot hitting on 4+ could bag you 2,3 or 4 hits. S7 will wound Terminators or even Nurgle Terminators on a 3+. Only Ap -1 but a failed save will equal a dead Terminator!

Looks like there is more of a reason to field Brokhyr Thunderkyn now!

Stratagem Spotlight

Finally we have Reactive Reprisal. Similar to the Rejoice the Fallen Stratagem the Sisters have (See here), where toy shoot back at a unit that shot at you, there are some differences.

With Sisters, the attack had killed someone in your unit.

With Votann nobody need to have died, but the target needs to have at least 1 Judgement token on it.

At 2CP, you shoot back at the unit! That could be an additional way to hunt that unit you placed Ruthless Efficiency on! They can't even try shoot and they get shot at back again!

So that is the whole review!

Thank you for reading!

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@zakludick

Hive South Africa