Let's Talk About Oath of Moment

I've been meaning to start this back up again, and with Warhammer Day and the release of the Space Marine Codex tomorrow, this seems like a good time.  I'm still struggling with my health, and I'm still trying to put as much time and energy as I can into my big project, but this hiatus has gone on long enough.  Plus I made a new Tumblr and it's time that got some love.

So let's talk about Oath of Moment.

When Oath was first unveiled in the previews leading up to 10th Edition, there was more than a little gnashing of teeth from the community.  GW had claimed they wanted the game to be less lethal and have fewer re-rolls.  But then they dropped Oath of Moment giving Space Marines full re-rolls to hit and wound.  More astute players weren't as phased by the unveiling, seeing the limits behind the rule and room to play around it.  But many people couldn't see past the apparent power on display.

As things have been, Oath has definitely been powerful.  It essentially lets the Space Marine player delete one unit off the board each turn.  It's particularly powerful when combined with Indirect Fire platforms such as Desolators and Whirlwinds.  But Space Marines have plenty of ways to get around the board and secure good firing angles.  So unless a player is really reaching they'll almost certainly kill their Oath target.

But while I think you'd be hard pressed to call Oath of Moment a weak rule, or even say that Space Marines lack good rules period, none of this made the faction overpowered.  Space Marines kicked off 10th Edition pretty close to a 50% win rate and only fell from there.  While they never approached the kind of levels that armies like Votann and Death Guard suffered, they struggled to hang with the more potent armies in the game.

Now unlike those other armies, this was almost certainly a pure points issue.  Space Marines definitely have rules, of which Oath of Moment is only one.  But this does seem to suggest that Oath of Moment really wasn't overpowered.

So why did GW change it?

If you somehow haven't heard, do I have a spoiler for the Codex release tomorrow!

Oath of Moment is no longer granting re-rolls to Wound against your chosen target.  This may be the most significant single nerf a faction has ever received.  Losing the re-rolls to Wound is definitely losing the better half of Oath of Moment.  Space Marines normally hit on 3s.  So while re-rolling Hits is definitely a buff, Space Marines still hit decently well without it.  But in a world where Plasma and Melta are wounding big targets on 5s, re-rolling Wounds is huge.  Add in abilities like Dev Wounds, and it becomes really big.

Chances are that well built Space Marine lists will still be able to eliminate their Oath target each turn, but harder targets are now going to take a lot more work.  This also shifts weapon priorities in Space Marine lists.  Combi-weapons have suddenly dropped in value while weapons with Lethal Hits or Twin-linked really matter.

Do you hear that?  That's the sound of thousands of players snapping off arms and guns.

Unlike other rules changes, GW has been pretty quiet about this one.  Because of this, we can only really guess why they decided the rule needed to be nerfed.  While I know there are some people seeing nefarious intentions here, I'm pretty sure the goal is to make the game easier to balance.

When GW is writing rules for units or deciding what their points value will be, they need to take Army and Detachment Rules into account.  The more powerful these rules are, the harder the unit is to balance.  We can see this illustrated plainly with Aeldari, the faction that arguably has the best rules in the game.

Even before we get to the new rules in the new Codex, Space Marines already have two good sets of rules.  Not only is Oath of Moment a good rule, but so are Combat Doctrines.  So when balancing Space Marine units, GW has to add in these rules.

But to make matters worse, both of these rules spike a Space Marine unit's power.  If the rules were bonuses that applied consistently, the design team could just lump them in with what the unit can do.  But not only does Oath of Moment apply to a single enemy unit each turn, each Combat Doctrine is also only once per game.  So when balancing something like the new Jump Intercessors, they have to not just consider what the unit can do on a turn by turn basis, but also what happens the turn they have Assault Doctrine and an Oath target.

By removing the re-roll Wounds, it becomes much easier to balance Space Marines.  Now their units will still spike occasionally, but it won't be as huge a spike.  This also helps internal balance as well.  Units that GW wanted to make good at killing certain targets with re-roll Wounds now matter more.  Why take a unit that gets re-roll Wounds against Monster and Vehicles when you're probably going to get it from Oath of Moment?  Now that unit has a definitive purpose in the army.

But let's not sugar coat it.

Regardless of why GW made the decision to nerf Space Marines, this is still a nerf and they're going to feel it.  There are some interesting rules to play with coming in the new Codex, though Gladius is probably still going to be the Detachment to beat.  But none of these rules are going to make up for the change to Oath of Moment.

Space Marines have gotten further points changes, and there are some significant buffs, but they weren't looking like an A Tier army after the last balanced pass.  While it remains to be seen just how bad this is going to be, I feel like Space Marine players have a bumpy road ahead of them.