Points and balance

 Again, I'm a little behind on this topic but I wanted to throw my pennies worth in to the pot. I'm not going to go through each point change and the finer points of each change on the balance sheet, I really just want to give a general overview of how I think the changes will affect me.

There are really only 3 changes here and all of them will affect me in one way or another. The first and third changes on the list are linked, with all Astra Militarum vehicles gaining Armour of Contempt and all titanic vehicles gaining the 2+ save. This means that all Astra Militarum have become more resistant, especially the various Baneblade chassis. The other change that was introduced was that Scion units can now take Hammer of the Emperor, as long as all the scions are from the same regiment, which they would have to be Under the current rules anyway. 

These changes will make quite a difference to my Hrossey Yeomanry lists, which are vehicle heavy, especially when combined with the previous changes to vehicle orders. I really like these changes, although there are a few clashes with some of the existing regimental doctrines. It also mean that I might actually run my Hellhammer again, now that it is not completely outclassed by the Leman Russ. 

Scions gaining Hammer of the Emperor is also great. I currently only run them as a completely separate force, so there is no issues with them gaining the benefits and will add to there punch, as with mostly S3 weapons, wounding has always been one of the harder parts. Hopefully this will see them become a lot more competitive, although -2ap isn't quite as good as it was with Armour of Contempt on marines now. 

The points changes are pretty minimal and are mostly restricted to wargear. No, there are a few people out there, who may be a little sinical, point out that most of the points changes match up with the new releases teased a few weeks ago. It's possible but either way, they are good changes. Most of these changes will impact me, with wargear price drops for basic units like company and platoon commanders, Tempestors, infantry, veteran, special, command, heavy weapons and Scion squads. A couple of these squads, mainly the Infantry, special and veteran squads have received a small price increase but with all the drops in wargear, unless your running them bare bones, you'll be saving points and when all the wargear is now free, why would you be running them bare bones? Other units that have received some points drops are Sentinels and Baneblades (and variants), although the base sentinel did get a slight point hike, taking any weapon other then the multilaser will actually result in a points saving.

Overall, these points drops will mean a saving across all my armies, some more than others. The Hjaltland LI and Dagr Ormr Scions will both benefit from the drops to the various squads, meaning a saving of over a 100 points apiece, the Hrossey Yeomanry will get far less out of the points changes, having a lot less troops and the only vehicle receiving points drops was the Hellhammer. However, the biggest boost to the Hrossey Yeomanry is the addition to AoC and 2+ saves rather then points drops. 

Both of these releases really help my guard armies and should enable me to field some good extra firepower without having to sacrifice other parts of the list. I'm hoping to be able to get a couple of games in the coming weeks but we shall see if thing plan out as I hope!