The new season will start on Monday, August 31st.

With the burrowing horror of the Red Terror passed it takes us to another master of tunneling, the industrious Kyn of the the Leagues of Votann! One particular Kyn has a bone to pick, with pick in hand, and a hand-picked pack of… balance changes! 

This season focuses on Supreme Commanders, with a number of the older warlords getting a small adjustment, as well as covering Draigo from being eaten by the Red Terror every time. In addition to that we’re having a bit of a deep dive into Leagues of Votann, and while not a full overhaul, with the aim of broadly upping the effectiveness of the faction as whole, and making the most of their more limited roster. That said, with a new Votann Warlord inbound we can expect a good injection of new blood into the roster too! Which should make Votann feel much closer to the other smaller factions on the roster!

And with that lets get stuck in!

Warlord Changes:

Untouchable Purity: Whenever you play a friendly card, it makes an attack with its highest attack type at 75%. Additionally friendly cards cannot take more than [75% -> 60%] of their base wounds as damage from a single attack.

We’re undoing the nerf to Kaldor Draigo from 6 months ago, because while Draigo was a menace for some time, it’s clear he’s slid well out of the top bracket, and by some significant margin. On top of that, with the release of the Red Terror, Draigo’s rule set where it was at 75% meant that he is guaranteed to trigger both the Red Terror and Illic’s kill rule. Needless to say that makes the rule more of a liability than a boost. In fact the Red Terror has had an incredible debut season showing quickly rising to be the most played Tyranid Warlord this Season, so its seems right to save Draigo from being swallowed whole with impunity.

Cost Change: -5 Cost [100 -> 95]
Trait Change: Outflank -> Furious Charge

Cost Change: -5 Cost [100 -> 95]

The Supreme Commanders are in an interesting position at the moment with the top WLs being incredibly powerful, but the bottom tier being very much, well, at the bottom. Part of this will always come down to their cost and whether or not they can fill the roster well enough, survive, and deal enough damage. With Space Marines having the highest average cost of bodyguards, and the most expensive Supreme Commanders at the 100pt limit, they’re notably in an awkward spot. So both the Space Marine primarchs are coming down by 5pts leaving a bit more wiggle room in the roster, one cheap filler or an upgrade to an existing card will certainly help!

On top of that, adding Furious Charge should help raise up the Lion into a much more offensively complete package. While Outflank was thematic, it doesn’t really have enough impact. With the Lion having one of the highest melee attacks in the game, the Furious Charge is going to be formidable, and combined with his counterattack, he should get the better of most opponents he’s deployed against, whether that be on your turn, or your opponent.

The Will of the Silent King: At the end of your turn, all your cards ready for [125 -> 175%]. In addition the first time Szarekh would be attacked he is replaced by a Triarchal Menhir.

Cost Change: -5 Cost [100 -> 95]

Likewise the Silent King is one of the same era of the original Supreme Commander and could definitely do with a bit of support. So, his cost is also coming down by 5, something that the Necrons can definitely make good use of, and his Ready buff is increasing by a meaningful margin. It should put him in a much more viable position over all!

With that we have covered this season’s Warlord changes, and now on to the bodyguard changes for the Leagues of Votann! It’s been a while since we’ve done a bodyguard commentary for the balance changes, but we’ve given a very broad change to Votann cards this Season both focusing on the pool as a whole and the roles and interaction with the more limited Warlord pool. Notably Uthar the Destined is this Season’s lowest performing Warlord, however a lot of that we feel is down to the pool and how its set up to support his playstyle, and so we’ve aimed to tackle that wholesale here.

Cost Change: +2 Cost [34 -> 36]
Trait Change: Warp Surge -> Psionic Blast
Ready Change: Psychic Debuff -> Ranged Buff

Votann is not a Psychic faction, and so bringing a Psychic card will have to be as a tech piece or one that fits with a Warlords strategy. So, by changing Ymma’s secondary trait from Warp Surge to Psionic Blast we’ve aimed to do that. 

Psionic Blast is obviously a great trait to have and immediately slots it into a more offensive support role. In particular it synergises fantastically with the aforementioned Uthar, and getting 3 free attacks that with him do a guaranteed minimum damage is now suddenly quite scary!

Additionally by changing her Ready to Ranged Buff she can happily sit alongside a Ranged deck buffing Ranged passively while using Psi Blast, but also fits more neatly into a Buri deck to hand out a more useful ready should she take damage.

All in all a much more well rounded, and legendary, feeling card that supports the whole roster, which is also why she’s going up a touch, by 2 points, which seems more than fair.

Cost Change: -3 Cost [68 -> 65]
Ready Change: Ranged Debuff ->  Ranged Buff

Cost Change: -3 Cost [68 -> 65]
Trait Change: Target Acquired -> Precision Shot

Talking of legendary cards, the two Hekaton Land Fortresses don’t quite deliver the goods, coming in as one of the worst performing Votann cards. So, both are coming down by 3 points, the Votann don’t have as much access to cheaper cards, so bigger cards can take up a lot of real estate. On top of that changing the Ready type of Judgement’s Hammer again helps with Buri Ranged lists, and Star Seeker gaining Precision Shot is much more meaningful on a big card that Target Acquired. Both should now feel more viable in any deck, but mostly looking at Buri Ranged, and Ettok.

Stat Change: +5 Range

Stat Change: +5 Range

But coming up next is part of the already mentioned faction overview piece. While Votann are a slightly more expensive than average faction, we are looking to make a small number of downward adjustments. But more than that, for such a small roster, there are a large number of overlapping pts costs covered. As well as offering a general decrease in cost faction wide, what these changes specifically also do is fill in a number of pts gaps in the roster. With these changes every card adjusted down shared a cost with another card, but now has a unique cost in the roster. It should create a lot more flexibility when working out what to fit where and should hopefully create some more interesting deck building choices!

Finally, Votann has a disproportionate amount of debuff readies and so while we’ve already tackled a few of those, we’re also changing two of the smaller Taunt cards from a debuff to a buff ready, one for both Melee and Ranged. These are cards that you don’t often care too much about their attacks, and also double up incredibly well with Buri, and gives you a good option for Melee or Ranged, so it helps in whichever way you wish to build your deck!

By the Ancestors! A much more detailed run through than usual but one that I think was due, and shows some much needed love for the Kyn’s smaller roster!

Final thing to do is run through all the cards added to the general pool this season which are as follows:

Cards Added to the General Pool:

And with that; may the Kyn guide you, your pick arm be strong, and the earth yield great riches!