Lore wise, Warhammer 40k’s two returned loyalist primarchs, and their four currently active daemon brothers, are mighty demigods of untold power. But actually bringing them into the tabletop game – a project Games Workshop started with Magnus the Red in 2016 – requires a subtler touch. GW had to design and balance these epic centerpiece characters to be suitably super-powered, but also balanced enough to be playable, without dominating games.
Have they managed it? It depends who you ask. Over the last 10 years, as more primarchs have taken new plastic form and entered the battle, the arguments over their uses, power levels, and points costs have never ceased. In the grim darkness of the 40k community, after all, there is only salt.
Last week, however, we got our first glimpses of how the loyalist primarchs would look and feel in 11th Edition, and GW’s new vision for the Big Dogs makes them, at the very least, a heck of a lot tougher to kill. Imperial Regent and Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman waltzed back into play with an extra point of Toughness (T10), six extra wounds (W16), and a re-touched suite of strategic buffs that’s as good, or better than what he had before.
And this Wednesday, his estranged brother Lion El’Jonson got the exact same bulk-up treatment: T10, W16. Both primarchs also retain their 3+ invulnerable save – the best fundamental armor saving throw available in the game (except for the Drukhari Archon, but we don’t talk about that).
Like Guilliman, the Lion also keeps Lone Operative when within 3″ of a marine squad, along with several of his other existing abilities, like the heavy-weapon-nerfing Emperor’s Shield. Like Guilliman, he gets always-on access to extra Combat Doctrines (though only one extra, where goody-two-shoes Rowboat Girlyman gets all three). Unlike Guilliman, however, the Lion keeps his ‘pick one of these three buffs each turn’ ability, Primarch of the First Legion.
And that’s where the fear is creeping in. If it were only the statline buffs, 40k players wouldn’t be quite as agitated about the Nu-Lion as the reactions online seem to suggest they are. The real hullaballoo is about new ability The Watchers – which takes the Lion’s previously optional, modal 5+ Feel No Pain vs. psychic and mortal wounds, and makes it a permanent, passive 4+ Feel No Pain vs. psychic and mortal wounds.
Totting things up, then: The Lion now has 16 Toughness 10 wounds, a 3+ invulnerable save, a -1 to wound for S11+ weapon hits, and a 4+ Feel No Pain against psychic and mortal wounds. He even still has the 5+ anti-psyker-and-mortal FNP as one of his three Primarch ability modes – but it now works in a six inch bubble around him, while Jonson himself enjoys a personal anti-mortal 4+++ at all times.
For psyker-heavy Warhammer 40k factions like Grey Knights, Thousand Sons, or even many Aeldari lists – who rely on mortal wound-dealing psychic attacks to do a lot of their killing – that defensive profile makes the Lion even harder to kill than Rowboat himself.
Stick him next to a very resilient infantry unit like Deathwing Terminators, who’ll gift him Lone Op while accepting his anti-mortal aura in return, and there’s almost no list in the game that could take that death star down. At least, not without a lot of math-hammer, a large dollop of luck, and ignoring every other threat other than the primarch.
Not to mention, if the other Primarch of the First Legion buffs remain the same (and the Warhammer Community article‘s wording suggests they do) then the Lion’s not just an unkillable death machine. He’s an unkillable death machine that can use Mist-wreathed Shadow Realms to ‘uppy downy’ (leave the board, then pop back in near another board edge the following turn) and present threats all across the battlefield.
Calming down for a moment: there are still two key variables about Nu-Lion we haven’t seen yet: his melee weapon profiles, and his points cost. Dunking hard on either of these could, on paper, ‘fix’ this issue. Only, I’m not sure they will. The Lion’s entire schtick, on the table as on the page, is being a consummate swordsman and expert duelist. It’s a role his current in-game combat skills meet satisfyingly – I can’t see GW nerfing that to make him tankier.
So, it’s going to be a points hike, and a big one. Fans are throwing around some huge numbers – like 400 plus, compared to Jonson’s current price tag of 265. This feels more plausible, and scoping out a hyper-elite, ‘primarch plus entourage’ army archetype for Space Marines would make sense, given the broader theme of Astartes armies in general getting stronger, tougher, and smaller in 11th.
Whether that ‘works’ – i.e., whether Lion El Jonson becoming nearly a quarter of your army is not just fair, but also fun, fluffy, and feasible – will depend on the rest of this Space Marine codex, and the types of army lists and playstyles that come out of it. For that, we’ll have to wait for GW to keep drip feeding details. But in the meantime, in my view, we have a right to panic a little bit – because the Lion is coming and he means business.
What’s your take on the new rules – did I miss something important? Are you a T-Sons main currently grinding your teeth into even more dust, or are you dusting off your own Lion for a spot of First Legion Fisticuffs? Come join the free Wargamer Discord community and let us know! Be kind though, I can’t shrug off 50% of all psychic attacks, even if Jonson can.
Source: Wargamer
