Surprise! It’s a rules update. Every faction is seeing updates at least in a small way but we’re focusing down on the Nords and W’adrhŭn here because they’ve been redone from top to bottom. The entire Goonhammer Conquest team is very excited about these, too, and we cannot wait to get our stands on the table to try them out!
W’adrhŭn
The W’adrhŭn rework has been long rumoured and anticipated, and it delivers on the big shakeup promised. This is what we would call a foundational update – while it makes sweeping changes across the entire faction, it’s major purpose is to set the conditions for good development of W’adrhŭn moving forward by making significant changes to the chant mechanic.
One of the challenges Para Bellum has faced with designing the W’adrhŭn faction was that, as much of a wonderful ‘big idea’ as they were, chants would significantly change the stats and outputs of the Regiments, which had multiple flow-on effects. They meant that it was difficult for players (especially opponents) to really assess the capabilities of the unit just by looking at its stat line, and perpetually constrained Para Bellum’s design space for the faction, as units were forced to be balanced against the potential buffs they might receive from the Chant mechanic, which meant they would often end up either overcosted without chanting, or wildly powerful once the highest-level chants were applied. By reigning in the bonuses granted, W’adrhŭn should be a more manageable faction to understand and balance going forward.
While the change to Chants is a major foundational shift and in pure terms a reduction in power for many of the units in the faction – and we will focus on it accordingly – it’s very important to appreciate that the scope of changes here are extremely wide, and lots of power has been injected in other parts of the faction now that Para Bellum is free to do so. The majority of the faction has received points discounts, attribute increases and other upgrades, or both, and we strongly encourage players to explore the new strengths and unit combinations available to them rather than focusing exclusively on some of the high points of strength that were removed in the update.
The Chant and You
The most notable change to how W’adrhŭn play now is, as noted above, in their War Chant faction rule. The core concept remains the same; when a unit activates it adds a Chant Marker to the Sequence, and when you activate Regiment with three Markers in sequence you may Chant the Battlecry. This actually represents a subtle change to the rule – before, you had the option of chanting at either two or three tokens, but chanting at three was mandatory (which could cause sequence breaks if regiments were lost at inopportune times); now, you can only chant with three tokens, but doing so is optional and if you don’t chant, the markers remain in sequence (and can be used by future regiments – a regiment can discard their own token if they don’t want to add it to the sequence, and use three existing tokens if they prefer). Beyond that initial change, the benefits gained have also changed quite significantly to apply Special Rules over flat stat buffs.
Tier 1 (using two matching Markers) is the same for Famine, Death and War cults; the Command Stand counts as an Additional Stand for the purposes of Seizing Objective Zones for non-Light units. It’s not going to come up much but it does help apply a little more scenario pressure with your units.
Chanting with all three matching tokens gives you both Tier 1 and 2 benefits. Tier 2 Famine still grants +2” of Charge distance but without Shock or Relentless Blows now. Tier 2 Death provides Untouchable, making it the new ‘defensive’ option. Tier 2 War grants Cleave (1), notably still not stacking with any existing Cleave. This is a pretty significant downgrade across the board, trading 2-3 effects for a single one (plus the Tier 1 benefit) and means you’ll feel the effects of these chants much less than previous versions. Fanatic is gone, simplifying the system and negating the hidden third tier and free markers.
Conquest Markers are still wildcards, and can be exchanged for Famine, Death or War tokens before chanting still. In addition, you can chant them for very similar effects to the previous iteration (+2” to the first March, and +2 Evasion respectively). You can no longer Chant the Battlecry with a mixture of tokens however, making it much harder to widely access these effects than before.
Finally, many units have now gained ‘unique’ chants they can use instead of the Cult ones listed above. We’ll cover these within the units themselves, but they generally provide interesting and powerful options that the unit can be balanced around, but which could never have been built into the core chant mechanic under the old rules. . This is definitely the biggest positive change to the system, letting units get specific buffs that they access through the core mechanic, and is an example of how Para Bellum is able to make use of the design space they’ve built into the faction with the update.
Artefacts, Upgrades, Supremacy Abilities
Right, onto the really good stuff. Your choice of Warband Cults are significantly more impactful than before, with a number of artefacts and masteries tied to the Cult your Character follows. Chosen units may also be taken in Warbands where the Character follows their cult, which lets you have some new Character/Regiment combinations to play with. There are some exciting stand outs; here are a couple of our favourites:
Roar of the Tribe (Artefact) – Granting Blessed onto your unit with extra Evasion from chanting Conquest lets you pretend you’re a Fallen Divinity. This is gated behind the Cult of Conquest so will only be taken on your warlord or a Scion of Conquest, but Blessed is a powerful rule otherwise unseen on any artefact and will see excellent use on regiments like Chosen of Conquest in particular, who highly value chanting and can use their chant for significant threat extension (which they can use to stay at a safe distance before the alpha-strike, maximising the ability to use blessed).
Death’s Gaze (Artefact) – while it’s not likely to be the most powerful synergy, Death’s Gaze leaps out in combination with the Chieftain in a unit of either veterans or braves to go to Impact [5] on an infantry unit. Veterans edge out slightly here due to their higher native clash, but both units work, and the potential for a thunderous foot charge is too fun not to try at least once.
Horn of Ronan (Artefact) – Did you think Aura of Death was dead? Inflict glorious Revenge by going five-wide and applying a casual 20 Trample hits at the end of a March/Charge from a Thunder Chieftain with Thunder Riders, with the artefact that adds two to your Trample value. Did we also mention Thunder Riders always automatically charge +5″? And that if they March, then Charge they go up to Brutal 3 and Linebreaker on their 4 Impacts each? Tasty.
The Matriarch Walks (Supremacy) – Auto-Rally armywide when chanting is nice, but the once per game +2 Stands for Seizing Objective Zones gives you a once per game ability to make all of your Lights scoring. Enjoy your early Scenario game when those Raptors grab that zone before pushing on to tie up the enemy whilst you close in.
We’d also like to call out some units who received welcome buffs along the way. Warbred gain an extra clash and the Juggernaut rule to always charge +5″, making them solidly efficient for their outputs. Braves gaining both and Attack and Resolve, losing Bloodlust and still being cheap makes them excellent value for points. And finally the Tontor, who has a unique chant to let him count as an additional 2 Stands for scoring and cancel out any effects that would deny it from Seizing Objective Zones. With it already counting as 6 Stands as standard, this becomes one of the strongest scoring models in the game, even if it takes longer to get into position now.
Dino-clusion
The ideas and work that have gone into this are extremely promising both in terms of the rework itself and future direction of the game. There are bits and pieces throughout that we really like, but particular standouts are the unique chants and chant effects (on things like the Slingers, Chosen regiments, Drum Beast etc) which in addition to all being really compelling presently are also much easier for the developer team to adjust in future if you need to, and the Teachings of the different cults, which are all very cool and add serious texture to the choice of your warlord’s cult. Decoupling some of the faction’s power from the chant mechanic had the risk of diluting their identity but the Teachings really help make the choice of warlord cult especially remain meaningful which in turn helps guide list construction.
In terms of balance & power levels, we’re broadly pretty optimistic about the faction sitting at a good place, but suspect there will be some feelings from W’adrhŭn players about their toys being taken away. A lot of the power the faction has gained in response to the change to Chants has been in things like points costs which may not be immediately noticed, even though it seems like a significant majority of the faction has received points discounts.
Nords
To frame this as a problem statement, several of the Goonhammer authors have seen a similar local cycle repeat where a new player buys into Nords assuming they play an in-your-face, beater and brawler style, only to discover they’ve actually purchased something akin to nordic wood elves and subsequently sell out of the faction. This is understandable as it’s been an army that aesthetically looks like it’d be a brute force faction and it really just has not been, but instead a glass cannon that can hit hard and score early but fall apart in the late game.
While the proposed solution from the player base and professional pontificators is often “make them what players expect, I guess?” the October 2024 rework actually asks players to meet them halfway, through a mix of broad overhauls (mostly ramping up speed and aggression with small increases to durability – Nords are more tenacious now, but still a faction that trades rather than grinds) with a number of ‘signpost’ mechanics that help direct players toward the aggressive piece-trading game the faction is meant to play with.
For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘signpost’ is a concept used in Magic: the Gathering’s card design to help direct players toward certain set concepts and colour combinations and how they’re intended to be used. It’s not an idea employed nearly often enough in wargaming, and one Goonhammer author who will remain nameless spent a good couple of days enthusiastically geeking out about the fact that Para Bellum was making use of them in the Nord update. The idea of a signpost mechanic isn’t necessarily to be overtly powerful – although they can be – but to provide a compelling idea for a new player to engage with that directs them to the broader concepts of the faction.
In the New Nords, we can see these kind of signpost mechanics in their army-wide special rules, many unit upgrades, and some artefacts. Some of the particular standouts are:
Prophecy Unfulfilled, which among other bonuses gives a unit +1 Resolve until the end of the round if it successfully charges an enemy. Go on, it says, move into combat aggressively. I’ll help you weather the counter-punch – swing first and be rewarded.
Aspects are gone. No more slight modification of your characters. Well except for buying them nice artefacts, and there are some really fun options there now! This is a fine change, really, as it basically just meant one stat was going to be slightly increased and the illusion of choice didn’t mean much.
Shield Biters and Rjoda, the Red Bringer make special use of the Die Fighting! mechanic, letting unit command stands or characters or both make parting blows against enemy units when they’re killed in combat (regardless of whether they’ve acted or not – an exception to the usual Die Fighting! rules). While Goonhammer expects Shield Biters to not see extensive play (not least because of some of the other reworked attachments, like the Savage and Captain – see below), the thematic allure of these rules is impressive. Nothing quite says ‘Nord’ like going down screaming under a heap of enemies that you’re taking with you to the grave; these rules scream ‘piece trading faction’ in a way that is front and centre in the army list, with no leap of intuition required to understand what’s being asked of you.
The Savage and Captain attachments, while perhaps less thematic than Shield Biters, serve to clearly and simply signpost the Nord win condition. Between the two of them, Nords have some of the best early scoring in the game, and some of the best melee first-strike capability in the game, and the ready accessibility of these attachments (which, unlike the shield biter, we expect to see extensively in Nord lists) helps onboard players to the mechanical advantages the faction enjoys. Being able to move+charge+attack with Bearskars is massive!
While there are too many changes to go over in depth right now, Goonhammer has consulted with some fellow players and has a few broad takeaways about the new update:
- In terms of what was, that is now lost, the extremely shooting-centric Nord armies that we saw extensively at the start of the edition but have waned slowly over time is now thoroughly gone. While there is some very solid ranged poke available to Nords (Bow Chosen having opportunist most games for free is a scary prospect), Nords are now a primarily melee faction (as they probably should be!)
- While Nords have seen the same [Battlefield Roles] update as W’adrhŭn and other factions, don’t be too quick to rush all-in on trying to maximise these synergies across an entire army. Nords are still very good at making independent self-contained warbands that can be pieces together to make a flexible, well-rounded and robust list.
- Internal Balance in the faction is overall very tight, with very few units falling below the average curve. There’s a lot to potentially experiment with, and significant scope for different competitive list archetypes.
Supremacy Abilities
Before finishing up I really wanted to cover the new supremacy abilities because these are very different. You can kiss Vanguard-Shaman good-bye. The Shaman will likely still see use but is no longer an auto-Warlord like he has been and now shares his Supremacy ability with the Volva, although this supremacy is extremely attractive and will likely become a go-to for many players, especially those looking for more straightforward, less technical buffs to their list.
Call the Hunt is for Blooded and Vargyrlords allowing you to choose one additional [Half-Bloods] Regiment to automatically arrive. That means the first unit you choose doesn’t have to be [Half-Blood] so still works really well for mixed armies.
Raid Tactics! for the Jarl is entirely different and gives all [Mortals] in the army his Tribal Tactics rule as if the Warlord was attached to that unit. These are set of three abilities that you choose one to be active at the start of the game: counting as Heavy for for purposes of inflicting wounds on Objective Markers, gaining Opportunist, or while engaging enemy units in the flank or rear that enemy regiment does not count towards seizing objective zones. For me the first one is the strongest making many Mortal units able to one-shot objectives between impact hits and attacks. Raiders removing objectives like they’re nothing (assuming they roll OK) is nuts!
Ruler of Manheim is unsurprisingly titled for the Konungyr, the King of your force. This ability changes the Prophecy Fulfilled rule to work on all of your units, including monsters, giving your Jotnar an extra boost to charge distance. This will be the go-to supremacy for any monster mash list.
Divine Protection for the Volva and now also Shaman gives all of your regiments +1 Evasion all game long (to a max of 2 still) but also now allows any of your regiments standing on an objective zone to be the target of Spellcasting Actions regardless of range or line of sight. That’s not just your Warlords spells but all spellcasting actions.
The authors are split on this one; the best choice here for Bair and GeneralCrossis going to be either a Jarl or Blooded/Vargyrlord Warlord. The former in an army consisting of enough mortals to make use of the wider spread and score earlier on those objective and the latter for armies making use of half-bloods to bring on more regiments more reliably in the early game; build your list right and you can guarantee your mortals and half-bloods mixed force fully on the table at turn three and take full control of the board. Robert, on the other hand, favours either the Jarl or the Shaman/Volva supremacies, valuing the spellcasting flexibility bonus to evasion on wide infantry lists using things like Raiders, Trolls and Ulfhendar and Baersarks in particular.
Wintery Finish
Overall, the Goonhammer team is very enthusiastic for this update and think it leaves Nords in an excellent place. Perhaps the only thing to really significantly critique is actually the ‘WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND’ section at the very end of the document, which suggests playing with ‘about four’ forests in games with Nords. Given the core rules tell us that most tables should contain ‘about six’ terrain pieces (and no more than eight), this means that the expectation is that fully half to two thirds of the terrain in a game is intended to be forests, which… look, don’t get us wrong, we like forests, but that seems like maybe it’s going to set some expectations that will cause complications in future? Fortunately, while the Nord rules that let them ignore or bypass terrain remain useful and thematic, the faction looks to be able to comfortably stand on its own even on tables that don’t follow the suggestion in the Nord PDF.
So, Good?
Yes, it’s all actually quite good. Is it going to mean doing some re-learning and adjusting with the units you have? Probably, yeah. Overall though these are fantastic quality of life changes that we’re very excited to get on the tabletop and start playing with! We’ll be covering the changes to core rules when they update next week and updating our Faction Focus articles in due course as well.
Bair: I’m especially excited to get my Nords back on the table now, seems like the army list just a lot more fun to play with and I can’t wait!
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