Goatboy here and it’s always been a struggle for GW to get Battleline units to be useful. Ork Boyz hinted at how they can fix that.
Sure you might see a Battleline unit or two but for the most part if the unit isn’t good at something particular like being tough or doing good damage then it isn’t really that good to the competitive player. The idea for Battleline units are those choices you need to make to help you complete the basic tasks of the mission at hand. Lately this has meant those options are normally backfield objective holders or screeners trying to keep the riff raff out of your backfield. Looking at the new Ork Boyz datasheet has me thinking GW may have more in mind for 11th Editions’s upcoming Battleline units.
Boyz Leading the Way for Battleline?
The ability for the Ork Boyz to action while in melee is a pretty big deal. Most of the time the action abilities have been a choice between doing what the unit is supposed to do (punch things) or scoring some arbitrary points for the game at hand. This meant that a unit who is actioning something is either not good enough to punch things or has to ignore what they are good at. An Ork boy is usually pretty good at punching things so having the ability to still punch stuff and do something to score points is a pretty amazing ability.
Intercessors Are the BIGGEST Question
This is something that makes your Battleline choice be able to score things as well as hurt things. My question right now is what upcoming Battleline choices are going to get these extra rules? We know the Marine codex is coming soon so what is our Intercessor going to be able to do?
Or, maybe we should be asking, what will they still get to do? The Ork Boyz have lost the ability to Sticky an objective so it has me wondering if that is going away for the Intercessor? What if the whole idea of Sticking an objective (holding it without needing a unit on it to hold it if you initially held it in your command phase) is going away from Battleline options and instead moving to an ability or stratagem armies can use or just going away all together. What if the new goodness is just being able to do some damage and still do an action?
I could easily could see GW giving Intercessors the ability to shoot and action. This would let them move up, throw down some firepower, and then still do the mission like the good nerds they are. We could see this continue on in other armies choices too with Leagues of Votann’s Hearthkyn Warriors getting a rule like this to allow them to shoot and “mine” some of those sweet victory points.
Other Battleine Factions?
What if you have other interesting things beyond just doing an action and they could “booby trap” an objective. The game is all about getting into terrain pieces so maybe instead of being able to do an action they actually trap things and throw out some wounds? What if they curse the objective by sacrificing some cultist on it or even allow a unit to “complete” a mission action if they killed something in combat for your Khorne Berserkers?
What other Battleline choices do you think there are that could gain some interesting rules like this? What kind of neat things are we in store for? Are you excited to get more Battleline options for our army painted up?
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Thomas Reidy, aka Goatboy, the ever-evil member of BoLS. I do arts, play 40k, and even paint a lot of stuff. I have been playing Warhammer 40K since the 1990s, and have won multiple national events including Adepticon and GW GTs. I’ve been writing for BoLS for 15 years. Look at my Instagram to see what I am working on – or working on for someone. I am always doing something hobby related.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
