The new edition is bringing three new detachments for the short kings of Warhammer 40k!
It’s time to consult the Ancestor Cores, or at least the Games Workshop staff, about what 11th edition has in store for Leagues of Votann players. Today’s Faction Focus article explores three all-new detachments with the usual additional video commentary.
Armoured Trailblazers
The already popular Sagitaur scout/transport is the star of this detachment. Some interesting abilities and trade-offs are offered for Leagues’ players who want to play on an offensive footing.
The detachment’s benefits begin with an army-wide buff adding Scouts 6″ to all your Sagitaurs. Being able to move up to 6 Sagitaurs up the board before the game even begins looks really solid to me. Votann are not well suited to foot slogging so this should really give you an edge.
This enhancement preview doubles as a preview of the new MOBILE ability and how it interacts with the new Terrain and Movement rules.
Essentially, this enhancement will make your Sagitaurs unstoppable. Nothing short of solid terrain can stop the advance of your scout transports as they barrel through cover.
The final reveal for this detachment offers an interesting bargain; sacrifice your detachment-granted Scout moves to put a pair of Sagitaur in strategic reserves. But even more crucially, these Sagitaurs can now make an ingress move. This is a really interesting trade-off, sacrificing quick movement at the beginning of the game for the ability to apply serious pressure later in the game. Cool to see such a novel maneuver arrive for the Leagues of Votann.
Farseekers
The Farseekers detachment offers a further boon to the far-ranging scout forces of the Leagues. The Hernkyn skimmers benefit from a number of reconaissance enhancing buffs that look to pair well with the above Armoured Trailblazers detachment.
Your Hernkyn units become peerless forward assault forces with the Eye of the Hunt detachment rules. We’ve seen that numerous other armies have ways of staying hidden or enhancing their own range-finding capabilities. Your Hernkyn are going to be operating deep across the board so a straight +1 to hit rolls against enemy units within 12″ shouldn’t be hard to achieve!
Even better, your Pioneer units gain the utility of the spotted ability with this enhancement. Increasing the detection range of hidden enemy units will be a key route to victory in the new edition and this looks like a great way of doing just that.
Further capitalize on your Hernkyn’s new role as spotters with this 1 CP stratagem. Your whole army gains IGNORES COVER against the target of this stratagem, not just the unit in question. This will be fantastic at rooting out big enemy units in cover so you can advance or take an objectives.
The Hearthguard Covenant
Exo-armored Hearthguard already make up the vanguard of a Leagues of Votann force and this detachment sees that they’re up to the task.
Hearthguard are all about close-range fire support and this detachment rule gives them some much needed reliability. Rerolling wound rolls of 1 is potentially a huge benefit for a unit capable of putting out as much firepower as these elites.
Retribution is the order of the day for your champions with this enhancement. A chance to strike back even after being destroyed adds some real resilience to your hearthguard and there’s a good chance you’re already attaching a Kâhl to a unit or two. This is a great bonus for your bodyguard units.
Another example of the tiered stratagems new to this edition, Fury of the Hearth looks like a great option. For 1 CP your Hearthguard unit gains +1S on its ranged attacks, with the option to spend one of your precious Yield Points to also grant those attacks SUSTAINED HITS 1. This kind of in-the-moment tactical decision is something really interesting about the new edition and I hope to see more of it.
Only two Faction Focuses (Focii?) remain! Tomorrow, we’ll see detachments previewed for the Adeptus Mechanicus before the series concludes on Friday with a look at the Necrons.
They’ve been back for a few years now but I’m still amazed that the Squats are back in Votann form.
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Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
