Warhammer 40,000

Details care of folks at Warseer and Bo LS. Credit where it's due.

Core System

• Change to Pre-Measure like WHFB 8th Edition.
• Force Organization Chart is still in use, no use of Percentage
• Adding new Fo C Slot called "Fortification" [0-1] / see below
• Phases remains the same, Movement, Shooting, and then Assault
• No Psychic Phase
• No Initiative Phase

Movement Phase

• Movement is pretty much the same. Infantry can move 6", Jump Infantry 12" and so on.

Shooting Phase

• Rapid Fire weapons can now fire at target 24" away irregardless of moving or not. (or choose to fire twice at target 12" away)
• Pistol is pretty much the same.
• New Weapon type "Salvo" - firing at max. range & max. shots if not move, or 1/2 range and 1/2 shots if moving.
• Heavy Weapon can now be fired on the move, but will be subjected to 'snap fire' rule.
• "Snap Fire" allows certain weapon types to shoot even if moving, but with a BS of 1 (ie. 6 to hit)
• Blast Weapons cannot "snap fire"
• You can only killed as much models in target unit as you can actually see (and within max range).
• Casualties are now removed from closest to furthest.
• Wound Allocation is completely changed.
• When shooting at unit partially in cover, player can choose to "Focus Fire" to kill only models in the open (or in a less covered position).
• You can now throw (most) grenades in the Shooting Phase at the range of 8", limited to 1 grenade per unit per Phase.

Assault Phase

• Charge Distance is now 2D6" adding together.
• Unit can elect to "Overwatch" if being assaulted. Simply a "Stand and Shoot 40K version" resolved at BS 1, Template does D3 hit instead.
• Overwatch can be done only once per turn.
• Unit declaring multiple assaults will suffer from "Disoriented Charge" (not get +1A)
• Unit assaulting multiple enemy unit is subjected to multiple Overwatch.
• Unlike Stand & Shoot, Overwatch does NOT cause Morale Check or Pinning.
• Pile-in reduced to 3" and is done at the model's Initiative Step (ie. before the model could strike)
• Casualties are removed from the front rank, like the case of Shooting Phase
• Units can elect to auto-fail Morale Check at the end of Combat if all models in the unit cannot hurt the attacker at all (ie. S3 vs T10).
• Challenges are in for IC.
• Close-Combat Weapon now have AP value, ranging from AP- to AP 1. Pistols don't grant more bonus than in 5th Edition.
• Power SWORD and Lightning Claws are "S: as user" AP 3, though Power AXE is S+1, AP 2, but is subjected to penalties (Initiative Reduced)
• Fists and Chainfists are Sx2 AP 2 and Unwieldy (Intiative reduced to 1), Thunder Hammers has "Concussive" (the exact (or almost) same rules as in 5th Edition)

Vehicles

• Vehicles are now limited to move at the maximum of 12" in the Movement Phase (though it can move further in the Shooting Phase if desired)
• Vehicles can opt to move "Flat Out" in the Shooting Phase, adding an extra 6".
• Vehicles movement and weapons. Defensive and Primary Weapons are gone. You can fire all of your weapons at most of the time. But moving faster will result in less weapon fired at basic BS, the rest will be fired at BS 1 (Snap Fire)
• Fast Skimmer moving Flat Out can be more lethal (fire more weapons than in 5th and moving faster [12" Normal + 18" Flat Out])
• Skimmer got a cover save called Jink, basically 5+ cover save and improved to 4+ if going Flat Out.
• Vehicles count as WS 0 (auto-hit) if stationary and WS 1 (3+ hit) if moved. No idea on how Fast or Skimmer will have bonus, as cover aren't used in Assault.
• Flyers are now in, with its own rules.
• Flyers can move very fast and is hard to target (6 only to hit) unless the shooter has Skystrike rules that allow them to shoot flyer at normal BS.
• When moving fast (called "Zooming") Flyers cannot move less than 12" and cannot disembark any models.

Vehicle and Damage

• New Vehicle Damage Chart, one to rule them all. 1-2 being Shaken, 3 Stunned, 4 and 5 Weapon Destroyed and Immobilised, and 6 Explodes! You only roll the table if the shot penetrate the Armour. Wrecks occur only from taking certain amount of Glancing Hits.
• AP 2 weapons add +1 to the chart, while AP 1 adds +2.
• AP"-" is no longer -1 on the table.
• Open-Topped is +1 as well.
• No more "Half Strength if the center hole is off", you always use full strength for any blast that hits the vehicle.
• Hull Points - a new style "wound" for vehicles. Any Glancing Hits removes 1 Hull Point, Penetrate Hit removes 1 Hull Point as well as rolling on the Damage Chart above. If reduced to 0 HP, the vehicle becomes Wreck.
• Vehicles has 3 or 4 HP, notable 4 HP vehicles are Ghost Ark, Land Raider, and Monolith. Details can be found in the rulebook appendix. (Bloodwing stated that some player propose that the formula for Hull Points is Front + Side(once) + Rear divide by 3. Fractions rounding down - this seems to be true.

Vehicle and Passenger

• Passenger can only disembark if vehicle move 0-6".
• Disembarking rules changes, you now place models in base contact with the access point and move up to 6" - this is the furthest distance the unit may move.
• Embarking is pretty much the same.
• Unit count as moving if the vehicle moved 0.1-6", and can only "Snap Fire" if the vehicle move 6.01 - 12"
• Open-topped transport rules are the same (access points and fire points)
• Exploding Flyer that has "zoomed" will result in a S10 no armour save on its passenger. And some sort of S6 Large Blast at any unit under the point the vehicle goes on flame.

Psychic Power

• NO PSYCHIC PHASE (or whatever people are assuming they are)
• Perils of the Warp causes one wound, no saves of any kind allowed.
• Types of psychic power, witchfire (psychic shooting attack), focused witchfire (has a chance to allow player to choose the target model when removing casualty by rolling low scores on Psychic Test), nova (affects all enemy units within range), maelstrom (affecting both friendly and enemy within range), blessing (augmented friend), and malediction (de-buff enemy).
• "Deny the Witch" - every models/units have a slight chance to nullify the effect of psychic power (6+). Chances increase if your unit has Psyker.
• Psychic Hood is reduced to 4+ Deny the Witch if the target of the power is within 6" of the wearer.
• There are 5 new Disciplines of Psychic Powers in the BRB, each has 7 Powers. Each army can access different Disciplines, some cannot use them at all.
• Casting Psychic Power remains the same as in 5th.
• Psychic Powers now have 2 level, calling Warp Charge 1 and 2. Mastery Level 1 can only use Warp Charge 1 power, while Mastery Level 2 allows you to cast 2 "Warp Charge 1" power or 1 "Warp Charge 2". Higher Mastery allows for more.
• Each Psyker generate Warp Charge equal to his Mastery Level.

Characters

• Look Out, Sir! is in. Grants character 50% chance to evade the attack if he's within 6" of friendly unit (works in combat too), resolved each successful Look Out Sir on the models within 6" instead.
• Look Out Sir! is improved to 2+ for Independent Character.
• Character can issue / accept challenges.
• One model in your army will be the Warlord (one with highest LD), Warlord can roll on a table (there's 3 table, you can choose 1) to see what benefit he receive. Examples are units within 12" can use his LD, the Character count as Scoring Units, Warlord has FNP if within 3" of Objective.

Tidbits

• Fortification - a new addition to the Fo C, limited to 0-1 this allows player to purchase some kind of terrain for their army. Expensive one are Fortress of Redemption (220 points) and cheap ones are Aegis Defence Lines (50 points)
• Allies - a new system that allows player to have a detachment made of another army in the list. Allies works like WF B8th Edition with best buddies, normal allies, and untrusted. The detachment is limited to 1HQ and 1 Troop(compulsory) and additional 1 Troop, 1 Elite, 1 Fast Attack, and 1 Heavy Support.

Missions

• There are 3 Deployment Types, one being the classic Pitched Battle, second one is reversed Pitched Battle (deploying along the short table edges), and third one is a triangular deployment.
• Selecting deployment zone remains the same, roll-off to see who deploys first and go first.
• Seize Initiative is still the same.
• 6 Missions with 2 Level Objectives. Primary Objectives grants more Victory Points, but harder to achieve. Secondary Objective is always 1 VP and has 3 of them. First Blood (for getting the first "kill point", Slay the Warlord (for killing the enemy Warlord - aka. general), and Linebreaker (having your units in enemy deployment zone at the end of the game)
• Deep Strike Mishap is softened now: 1 - You're Dead, 2-3 Misplaced, and 4-6 Delayed.
• Feel No Pain dropped to 5+
• There's still only 1 Level of Instant Death, no Instant Death(x)
• Fleet allows for re-rolls on Run and possibly Assault distances.
• "Hammer of Wrath" allows model to make single attack at their base strength before combat on the turn it assault. Jump Infantry and Bike have it.
• Monstrous Creature can make "Smash" attack, forfeit half of its attack to resolve attack at Sx2 against vehicle.
• Flying Monstrous Creature can make two mode of movement. One being 24" move, performing D3+1 "Vector Strike" on a single unit within the path and then shoot up to two weapons or run 2D6" in the shooting phase. However, it cannot assault or being assaulted unless it get shot and fall down from the sky first (can't remember how you fire at it, 6 only?) Should it fall from the sky, it will take S9 hit and can now be assaulted as normal.
• Sniper has rule to allow them to allocate wounds to the model of your choice if you roll a 6 when rolling to hit.
• Rage is now +2 Attack on assault.
• Many new generalization of rules...such as Armourbane (roll 2d6 for armour penetration) and Fleshbane (2+ to wound)....this also expands to weapons as well (unwieldy, concussive, etc.)

Allies:

There is 4 classifications.

• Battle brothers - these allies are truly freinds and benefit from each othersuniversal special rules, psychic powers, and everything, they act as one force.

• Allies of convenience - these allies will fight together if they have a common foe, they do not get to benefit from each others USR or powers, and in effect act as independant armies on the table.

• Desperate allies - these allies only fight in dire straights and gain no benefit from each other. you must roll a d6 if the roll is failed your allies do nothing for the turn as they are watching you for betrayal.

edited 26th Jun '12 1:38:39 AM by MyssaRei

I wonder if Daemons will get a fortification option that makes them more stable or offers guaranteed deployments or something. I wonder if their fortifications will start on the table or if we'll be seeing Eldritch Fortresses bursting out of the ground.

Hmm... and I wonder if anyone will get a unique character that can smooth over relations with desperate allies, either with a particular other army, or in general.

edited 26th Jun '12 2:19:34 AM by Durazno

What's Pile-in?

Thanks.

edited 26th Jun '12 2:39:19 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Pile in is the consolidation move you get after an assault, where your surviving models have to move so that they can get close to base-to-base contact with the opposing unit. Depending on the edition, the unit had to move as far as it could to do so, up to their base movement.

edited 26th Jun '12 2:36:27 AM by MyssaRei

This makes Terminator armor even tougher!

...tougher except for termie librarians, who are nerfed (though I guess it's still useful against attacks and Vortex Of Doom mishaps). And psychic hoods are nerfed even more.

...On the Ork side, with FNP demoted to 5+, giving my 7 nobz heavy armor is now more point-efficient than giving them a painboy.

edited 26th Jun '12 5:28:34 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Still nothing on the fluff of the enxt edition?

Or about a release date?

Suffer not the witch to live.

Release is presumably going to be the 30th.

I'm going to build a Terminator list now. Regular termies can actually last in CC now.

edited 26th Jun '12 5:12:25 AM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

GW seems to be taking the game into a more 'simulism' direction compare to the earlier editions, we will have to wait and see if this is going to be a good thing or not.

hashtagsarestupid

Yeah. Sergeants in the back is more realistic, but to me 40k was more about the mindless heroism on all sides. Especially when the fluff said it: Leaders, especially Commissars, lead by example. Now all commissars will act like Ciaphas Cain in-game!

edited 26th Jun '12 5:46:58 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

It's like some bastard child of Warhammer Fantasy and 5th edition. We'll just have to wait and see.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

This reminds me of Dungeons & Dragons fourth edition actually, it has a huge emphasis on the importance of the terrain and the use of special powers rather than simply finding the right build and then moving into close combat.

hashtagsarestupid

Are Lightning Claws really inefficient in attacking vehicles and other such objects, in comparison to other Power Weapons?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Power weapons and lightning claws are both horribly inefficient against vehicles.

Specialized power weapons (like power fists and thunder hammers) are better.

edited 26th Jun '12 6:53:32 AM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

5E lightning claws and basic power weapons get no bonuses against vehicles.

Lighning claws reroll to-wound, not armor penetration.

You need a power fist/klaw or better (thunder hammer, chainfist) to strike at ×2 strength. Or a witch blade, which hits vehicles at S9.

...Or being a 5E Monstrous Creature, which rolls an additional D6 for armor penetration ("Armourbane" in Myssa Rei's post). But 6E replaces this with Smashing (A/2, S×2)

edited 26th Jun '12 6:57:19 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Minor grammatical... problem

Irregardless

"Coffee! Coffeecoffeecoffee! Coffee! Not as strong as Meth-amphetamine, but it lets you keep your teeth!"

I thought a Lightning Claw is a Power Fist with long blades attached to it?

edited 26th Jun '12 7:02:07 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

No, it's just a multiblade power-weapon. Chainfists are powerfists with a power chainblade added.

edited 26th Jun '12 7:07:22 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Okay, so lore-wise and rule-wise, which Power Weapon type seems to be the most versatile/powerful?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Not counting dreadnoughts, I'd say it's tied between thunder hammers and chainfists.

With both, you're likely to kill infantry on 2+, likely to inflict instant death if you're not a guardsman; chainfists improve your chance of harming a vehicle while thunder hammers automatically add a "crew - shaken" damage on top of existing one, which can be handy if you just "immobilized" something dangerous.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

That being said, you always strike last with them, so against a faster, power-weapon equipped unit (see: Death cult assassins with their 4 attacks on the charge) your guys would be screwed if they didn't have some kind of protection (like a storm shield.)

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Swords probably win the versatile, it's hard to parry with the others, but this isn't remotely reflected in the rules.

Nous restons ici.

How the hell is a two-man Heavy Bolter Team supposed to pull that off?

Groxcrap. A unit counter-charging into a mixed melee is going to get confused because they think the swirling battle has more than two units involved? My Orks are going to be able to differentiate between the two Guardsmen squads standing right next to each other in the firing line?

While it's nice to finally have something to set a chainsword apart from a rock tied to the end of a stick (and a chance for Choppas to be special again), this is going to play merry hell on existing armies and frak over players who like to spice up their models. I gave some of my Vanguard Veterans axes from the Space Wolves spruce because I ran out of swords and thought they looked cool. Meanwhile Chaos Terminators come with so many combinations of swords, axes and mauls that it's rare to see a uniformly-armed unit. Assigning different AP values or initiative penalties to these weapons is going to lead to some confusion and explanation at best, or a lot of amputations at worst.

...Why? Was there an epidemic of players being unable to remember how far they moved their vehicles?

Vehicles moving while being able to contribute to the battle - good. When I started playing it was rare for Leman Russes to do more than pivot during a six-turn battle, and I liked how the 4th Edition rules finally let them advance with the men while still providing fire support. I'm curious as to how much this new Snap Fire nonsense is going to penalize it.

Which pretty much confirms this as the Buy Our Tanks edition. Vehicles are now harder to kill, while anti-tank weapons carried by infantry are much more vulnerable thanks to that idiotic "first rank first" rule. So my best bet to beat that tank is to use one of my own.

God forbid my shiny $74.25 Land Raider get one-shotted by a gun that shoots black holes or a heat ray to the reactor...

Good, an attempt to categorize the different psyker abilities. Cut down on confusion over what's a psychic attack and what's a psychic shooting attack and what the difference is between the two.

Who was asking for this? Who was saying "Yes, I want the myriad of psykers produced by the disparate races of the galaxy all drawing from the same list of psychic powers. Yes, I really want to buy a $13.25 deck of Psychic Power cards."

If I wanted to play Warhammer Fantasy, I'd be playing Warhammer Fantasy. Trust me on this, I can get the models the same place I get my Space Marines.

Way to make a mechanic out of something that was implied in previous editions in order to halfway compensate for another bad mechanic in this edition.

Nice to be able to get a use out of terrain, but problematic if you're bringing bunkers for a scenario where you're the attacker. Guess your engineers threw them up overnight to support your thrust.

This is kinda cool. It always seemed a little silly when a Bike Squad or Assault Marines crashed into the Eldar lines only to attack second in close combat.

Seems pointless unless they're removing the 2d6 Monstrous Critter armor penetration bonus. So I'm assuming it's gone.

Why do we even have Sergeants?

Though in fairness, as far as the model itself goes yes, a Lightning Claw is a Power Fist with some Extreme Spiked Knuckles added to it.

Up until this edition, this is a trick question because there was no mechanical difference between a Power Sword and a Power Maul, and fluff-wise the important thing is the energy field surrounding the weapon, not the shape of it. Though Night is right in that it's harder to parry with an Axe than a Sword.

edited 26th Jun '12 11:36:27 AM by Tacitus

Current earworm: "Time of Death"

Actually tanks have become easier to kill: Now four glancing hits are guaranteed to wreck one.

And a 1HP vehicle is now just as fragile as Artillery: Any glancing or penetrating hit destroys it.

edited 26th Jun '12 12:12:15 PM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

So Necrons can take down Land Raiders with glancing hits again?

TALOSTALOSTALOSTALOSTALOSTALOS

They do seem to have knocked out these rules during a drunken WHFB match. And I say this as someone who plays WHFB.