Sneak Peek at Upcoming Changes to the Warriors of the Dark Gods Army Book

The Warriors of the Dark Gods were above the desired benchmark, as a few builds consistently over performed. The review was a tough one for all parties, and took a whopping 4 hours. The army has had some major internal design changes and a few builds were addressed in particular. Here are some of the most important revisions:

1. Marks of the Dark Gods were redesigned on many levels. To begin, pricing has changed. Since different Marks give different features to different units, in the long run sticking with same price for all of them caused some internal balance problems. In the new update the price of each mark will vary for each unit. One mantra of T9A project is to avoid any auto-includes, and MoL chariots, MoC characters and MoW everything else were becoming just that. The new pricing will address this.

Regarding internal balance, even with the new pricing structure for marks it was likely that some of them would never see play. Therefore, every mark but the Mark of Change got a slight redesign in order to make them more unique. The new Marks are more tactical, promoting good maneuvering and discouraging deathstars. Also, their roles are clearer now:

• MoW — Offensive: +1 to-hit to the front, can't declare flee.
  
• MoP — Defensive: -1 to-hit from the front (but no worse than on 5+), -1 Initiative for the marked model.
  
• MoL — Control: Re-roll charge, pursuit and random movement rolls, and Immune to Panic.
  
• MoC — Support: Ironically, given the name, there has been no change.
  

Finally, the stacking of Marks and "ubermarks" were always on weak foundations balance wise, and with the overall toning down of the power level they had to go away.

2. Gaze of the Gods gives re-roll to-hit and to-wound the next turn after killing a Monster/Character in a challenge. The current table for the Gaze of the Gods was too complex for what it brought to the table. It saw play maybe once a battle and would always require checking the book because the table, especially the secondary effects, was hard to memorize. Relatedly, Trolls have lost Warped Regeneration.

3. Complete overhaul of Magical Items and Gifts. This was the #1 priority for the ABC, as they felt that when the book was first published there was not enough time to design the items properly. Many of the old gifts/items were removed and some of the ones that stayed have been changed. It's only a Sneak Peak so we're not going to lay it all out, but some of the important changes are:

• Nine Tailed Standard now only gives non-Skirmish infantry +1 Movement, but its price has dropped and the bubble effect is still there.
  
• Out of the four god-specific banners, all of them but the Banner of Transmutation are available for 25 pts.
  
• All the Dark Gods have a separate dedicated gift now - 3 of them are old gifts, but one is completely new.
  
• The Once-Chosen gift is back!
  

Some of the gifts and items that were removed entirely are:

• Crushing Strength
  
• Blessed by the Dark Gods
  
• Dagger of Change
  
• Beguiling Chains
  

4. Lust Ubermark gives Skirmish and +2 Movement to Chosen and Once-Chosen, but only starting-size units are able to take this upgrade (10 for Chosen and 3 for Once-Chosen). Since the old Lust-marked Chosen hardly ever saw play, we tried a bit of outside-of-the-box thinking and gave it a more flavorful function which was in line with the general concept for Marks and hopefully could also open a new playstyle. That's right: Uberfallen.

5. Monster Mash with Daemon Prince, Elder Dragon Centaur and 2x2 Crushers was dominating tournament lists and with the changes happening across the board had to be addressed. Fielding this setting in the standard formats is still possible but not with full kit anymore. The flying version was also limited in that WDG can now only field a maximum of 2 Large Targets with Fly, though as always there are upgrades allowing you to circumvent this rule.

6. Core Wasteland Chariots were too obvious a choice for the standard WDG playstyles and were moved to special. However, this came with returning them to their elite T5 status and with the option to play them in core if you field your General on a Chariot. Another change, prompted by community feedback, is that the Chariot profiles were merged with the Mauler Chariot, which is now an upgrade that increases the chariot's survivability but limits its speed. These can't be taken as core, though.

7. Wrath Priest was rarely seen, even in mono-Wrath lists, and as a result was heavily buffed. At the start of the game the player can choose one of the three Special Rules, once of which allows the model to count as a Wizard Master for dispelling if no friendly wizards are present on the battlefield.

8. Hellcannon has gotten a redesign too. We streamlined the unbreakable option with the Daemon Prince and simplified the overall design a bit. Now it has Movement 4 and two modes of fire: if it doesn't move it has longer range and higher Strength. The -1 Ld penalty for panic is gone, but the panic test is still obligatory if it inflicts a casualty.

9. The WDG heroes and units have very strong natural protection and the mechanic of stacking the Ward Saves globally was pushing their defense over the top. With the new version the Battle Shrine aura is only 6" and it grants Hard Target to all non-LT units. The Change Ubermark has lost the 6+ Ward Save but it gained the Dagger of Change abilities instead to further emphasize the concept behind the Mark.

10. The Giant got some love too and with the new draft is able to unleash some Pink Fire at the opponent.


Snapshot of the WDG review about Marks:

WDG_review_Marks

Please keep in mind that the issues and proposals discussed in those recordings may not always reflect the latest rules update you will see when we finally release the armybook, but we hope it will give you nevertheless an interesting sneak peek.