They Don't Make Claws the Way they Used to

Posted by Ranillon on 20. January 2009 00:16

So, I was thinking earlier today over the effects of the new Rending rules for 5th edition.  In particular, what effect it has on the genestealers in my Tyranid army (not to mention the assault cannons in my Deathwing army).  To get the proper perspective on this I sat down and did a little math to figure out the exact changes.  Here is what I found:

The most obvious insight is that under the old rules skill didn't matter when it came to Rending -- you can roll a 6 just as easily if you are a gretchin as you can as a chaos lord.  By comparison, skill is now huge when it comes to Rending as it can greatly decrease your odds of success.  However, even skilled combatants that typically hit on a 3+ are still looking at a reduction of Rending effeciency of 34%!  If you ask me, that's a gigantic difference.  To put it another way, my group of 10 genestealers are now going to only kill 5.5 space marines on the charge rather than the old 7.5 -- two less marines.  That may not sound like much, but it adds up over the course of a game.

My conclusion -- I wouldn't go so far as to say that Rending has been "nerfed", but it is a significant reduction of effectiveness.  For armies that used to rely on Rending to do the heavy lifting of enemy removal (like my typical Tyranid force) generals are going to need to seriously retool their forces in  an attempt to make up the difference.