The Tank Commander can do all of this while on the move. When the tank commander moves, it loses almost nothing. When the Exocrine moves, it goes from hitting eight shots to two on average! So, the unit is as tough as a mainstay unit of the game. The damage output can be just as good, but when will we ever get the chance to stay stationary and put it to use. Maybe we can engineer situations where it can stay still, but why try instead of just allying in a Tank Commander? We do have access to a stratagem that states explicitly that it will count as stationary in Blood of Baal Psychic Awakening. Its weakness has been removed, and it can compete. However, I was comparing it to a less popular variant of Tank Commander. Even with this new stratagem, can it compete with the more popular Battle Cannon equipped Commander? Is it worth the ally to take the superior commander? Is it better to keep the new Exocrine? The Exocrine is still not as good, but it takes less effort to put it into a list. You will have to pay a troop tax somewhere along the way.

These close variances in units that aren't dominant are what makes the game the most interesting in my eyes. How do you build the most efficient list that can check all the boxes of competitive play, even if you don't have access to the most powerful codexes? This puzzle keeps me coming back to the list building phase again and again and continuously has me re-evaluating units.

As I noted above, we see that we don't want "perfect balance." This is unattainable anyway but would lead to a very dull game state. Everything being that equal wouldn't lead to any discovery. Everything can be used, and nothing seems to have a leg up on anything else. The process of discovery and the ability to add a stratagem or rule to a mediocre unit breathes new life into how an army can be constructed, and these effects ripple out over the entire meta. If something like the Exocrine comes into the meta, that may affect an entire codex through a chain reaction.