Shoot!

Once again, Warhammer Community returns with a new mechanic, shooting! Shoot, I don't mean new mechanic, it's an old one with a few changes.

Anyway, apart from the Ballistic Skill changes and the movement changes we had the other day - in case you don't remember, us pitiful Guardsmen can now fall back in combat, and even if we can't shoot, our other squads and platoons can shoot at those melee bastards - what other changes do we have?

First, we can no longer shoot at an enemy within 1" of us unless we have pistols. So pack up on those bolt pistols and plasma pistols, boys! Best, these guys can shoot with their pistols during combat! That's right, boys. Even if your pistol-wielding Commissar is locked on combat, you can still shoot your enemy with your plasma pistol or bolt pistol during the shooting phase, I think which comes right before the combat phase. Hooray!



The heavy weapons is a huge nerf to us tank users, unfortunately. Even if you move heavy weapons no longer snap fire. Instead, you have a -1 modifier for to hit rolls. Meaning your Guardsmen who hits at 4+ will only land a hit with his heavy weapons such as lascannon or missile launcher with a 5+ now. That sucks for my Leman Russ tanks, because their standard 4+ roll will turn into 5+ for their heavy weapons every time they move. Oh boy, the Leman Russ Punisher is going to be punished for its 20 heavy rounds. Ugh. On the other hand, you can at least fire stuff like heavy flamers and other pie plates or template weapons without worrying about snapfiring. I think. Actually, good question. How do blast weapons work now? They didn't mention blast weapons - since we no longer have Ballistic Skill, how do we account for Scatter? Uh...

Smoke launchers reduce the enemies' attack by -1 too, so if my Leman Russ tanks pop smoke the Space Marines firing their meltaguns hit at a 4+ instead of the usual 3+. Groovy.



Oh, and we were talking about cover saves the other day thanks to Jesse Sinclair, who mentioned how cover saves in Age of Sigmar is a flat +1 bonus to save rolls (thanks, Jesse!). Apparently it's the same for 8th Edition. Cover saves just grant you a bonus to armor saves now, and the type of cover you take will provide cover only to specific units. For example, craters only apply to infantry because obviously a tank can't take cover there despite your best efforts to hide 25% of it from view (no more cheating, in other words).

It also means the armor penetration power of our lascannons and so on can punch through cover and render those bonus saves meaningless. Hooray! Of course, we still have Ignore Cover weapons such as the Leman Russ Eradicator's nova cannon (I don't know if flamer templates still ignore cover, but based on the weapon profile of the flamers, I don't think they ignore cover any longer). And again, still nothing on scatter or how blast weapons work. Uh...okay. Never mind.

Anyway, we'll be charging into the charge phase tomorrow!

Psykers galore!

As promised, here's today's post on the new psychic phase from our favorite Warhammer Community!



Here's a rundown of how psychic powers work now:

No more generating warp charges at the beginning of your turn. Yay. There's no reason to spam Pink Horrors for warp charges now.

Psykers can still cast as many spells as their Mastery Level. So my Level 2 Primaris Psyker can still cast 2 psychic spells (eh? I don't have a Primaris Psyker in my armored company). Instead of rolling a number of warp charges that you decide on, as in the old system where you roll a number of dice from your warp charge pool and try to get as many 4+ as possible to pull it off, you roll only 2 dice. You just need to beat the warp charge value for the spell you're trying to cast.

All Psykers can cast Smite, which has a charge value of 5 and deals D3 mortal wounds to the closest visible enemy within 18". Sweet. Mortal wounds? What's that? Uh, wounds that cannot be saved, whether the target is in cover, has armor or even has invulnerable save. If you roll more than 10 for the psychic test you deal D6 mortal wounds instead. Wow!

So basically, as an example, you have a level 1 psyker. You want to cast Smite. So you roll 2 dice. If you get 5+, you'll be able to pull that spell off. Otherwise, f you only get 4-, the spell doesn't go off and you move on to the next spell. I doubt you can cast the same power twice, like old times.



It seems Perils of the Warp is still there. So if you roll a double 6 or something, boom! Your psyker either gets dragged screaming into the Warp, or he explodes and turns into that which should not be named.

Deny the Witch is still here, with any enemy psyker within 24" having a chance to block a power. Their mastery level will dictate how many powers they can block per turn. I guess Adamantium Will and other stuff will help with this, but we shall see.

One last thing. Each faction will have its own psychic lore with a range of thematic powers. I dunno how to feel about this, but I guess we'll no longer be using the standard Divination, Telepathy, Telekinesis, Biomancy, Pyromancy, etc. :(

Hell yeah. Time to start adding Battle Psykers to my army. And then an allied Thousand Sons (according to the lore or story, they're still enemies of my Imperial Guard, but they're intervening for their own sinister motives against a common enemy...for example, the Death Guard).

I don't know if I want to cover warzones tomorrow, but I'll definitely shoot you guys up with the shooting phase on Sunday.

Edited: Thanks to Jesse Sinclair for bringing this up - apparently there's a rumor that you choose your psychic powers instead of rolling randomly for them now! Of course as Jesse says, it'll be stronger and weaker because while we'll always have the powers we need, the current ones will obviously be toned down. Apparently it might be based off the current Age of Sigmar model for psychic powers. Thanks, Jesse, for the info!

Movement

All right, I see Movement in Warhammer Community!

Okay...bad pun. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm sure you can just read what they have, but to sum it up, here's what they have:

All units will have their own individual movement. So instead of the standard 6" movement, Guardsmen will move slower than Harlqeuins who will move slower than Hormaguants. Stuff like that. I think Chimeras and Tauroxes will move faster than the lumbering behemoths, Leman Russ tanks, and Taurox Primes and Hellhounds will move faster than all of them.

Flyers will have their own minimum and maximum speed, so fighters will move faster than bombers. I'm not sure how the Valkyrie or Vendetta gunships will factor into this, but I'm guessing they'll have a larger minimum movement speed than bombers and smaller minimum movement speed than fighters. I mean, they're gunships. I think there will still be the hovering and zooming rules that will come into play.



You do running in Movement phase now, not shooting. But if you move, then run (in the same phase), you can't shoot. Pretty straightforward.

We can fall back in combat now. You can choose to fall back during the movement phase by moving away from your enemy. It sucks for us Guardsmen if we fall back from combat because we're so weak in melee. Not only that, we get punished for being charged because if we fall back, we can't advance, shoot and charge that turn. Worse, we can still get shot at and charged at. What the hell!?

On the other hand, this apparently opens up tactical options for the Imperial Guard, because we can bait the enemy to charge at our squad in front, then fall back so that the other squads at the back can fire at the melee enemy in overlapping arcs of fire. I don't know how this will work in practice, but hey, I play tanks, not Guardsmen. So...I don't know. I wonder what happens if tanks and vehicles (non-walkers) get locked in combat. Do we lose our shooting and stuff if we fall back? It's not as if my Leman Russ tanks can fight back in combat.

Tomorrow we'll have a psychic phase, which I'll update you on...because I might eventually get a Thousand Sons army to help my loyalist Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus. No, you heard that right. Apparently I'm planning to write a stupid story, titled Mere Mortals, where the Draconian Imperial Guard Armored regiment and their Imperial Knight allies of House Yato are drawn into a conflict with the Death Guard and a Nurgle Daemon Prince, and the Thousand Sons intervene with their own agendas...

Weapons in 8th Edition

All right, as promised, here is the scoop on Warhammer 40,000 weapons for 8th Edition. You can read the original Warhammer Community post here.

One thing that stands out. Destroyer Weapons no longer exist. Strength D no longer exists. Hooray. No more losing my Stormsword or Shadowsword to a stupid roll of 6 from that damned Eldar Wraithknight's Strength D cannon. Instead, we have weapons that are more powerful than Strength 10 and can deal multiple wounds per hit, so they will scale accordingly instead of just losing 6+D6 wounds with no saves allowed.



An addition to the weapons' profile is damage. Apparently high strength weapons such as lascannons now deal multiple wounds to a single model. The lascannon, for example, can dish out D6 wounds, potentially ripping off a chunk of wounds from that vehicle. Obviously it'll be overkill against an infantry model, and no, the multiple wounds is for a single model, so they will not spill over in a 10-men squad or something.

Templates no longer exist. So my flamers automatically hits, which mean it deals D6 hits. Unlike the lascannon, it deals one wound oer hit. So yeah. It's only Strength 4, though, so it's best used against Guardsmen, Orks and blobs. Boltguns have the same strength and AP, and does only 1 wound per hit, but don't forget you still have rapid fire for it. I don't know if flamers still ignore cover, because with templates gone and no indication that it ignores cover, well...I just don't know. However, flamers are still more powerful against blobs than lasguns. Yay.



Another huge change is the AP value. Now, it's no longer a binary system, where, hey I have AP3 and therefore I can punch through your 3+ armor save or you ge 3+ armor save because my weapon is AP4 and above. Rather, AP seems to be a modifier. For example, bolter and flamer both have 0 AP while lascannon has -3 AP. What does that mean? Okay. Say your typical Space Marine has an armor save of 3+. What happens is that you modify that armor save with the AP. My flamer or boltgun has 0 AP, so you stick to rolling 3+ for your armor save. However, if I used a lascannon, your armor save will be modified to 6+ because of the lascannon's AP of -3.

With me so far?



Anyway, my Company Command Squad are all equipped with flamers, so I'll be dishing out 4 D6 assault hits that hit automatically. Hell yeah. As Warhammer Community says, the flamer will be the go-to weapon for infantry squads. Let the galaxy burn!

Now let me give you an example of how the weapons work. Say there's a Dreadnought with Toughness 7 and 3+ armor save charging my Leman Russ tank. I fire a lascannon at him. With Strength 9, I can probably wound him on a 2+. I roll a 2, and hey presto! He gets wounded! However, he has an armor save, so he rolls 3+. With the AP 3- modifier of the lascannon, his armor save turns to 6+, so if he fails that armor save. I don't know how cover saves are going to work, so we're assuming he's in the open here. Anyway, after we confirm that he's hit and wounded, I roll D6 to see how many wounds that hit causes. I roll a 6, so I actually deal 6 wounds to him straight. However, with the new system, the Dreadnought now has 8 wounds, so he won't die from that. He also won't lose a weapon or becomes stunned because the vehicle damage table is removed.

According to Hudson (thank you!), there is a new damage table for Monstrous Creatures and Walkers, so the more wounds they have taken, their movement or ballistic skill will be affected. Something to keep in mind!

Makes sense?



On the other hand, not only would I need to roll a 4+ to wound a Terminator with a flamer, he still has his 2+ armor save that is not modified by the flamer's AP 0. And he has 2 wounds, so even if he fails that one, well...yeah.

I suspect invulnerable and cover saves will be modifiers rather than saves taken by themselves, but we shall see. I don't know. We'll find out...soon. And I don't know how Instant Death will factor into this as well. Will a lascannon Instant Death a terminator with Toughness 4 because of his Strength 9, even if I roll a one? How will Instant Death work for this new mechanic? Do vehicles get Instant Death-ed, for example a Toughness 7 Dreadnought gets wrecked by a Strength 14 weapon? Hmm...



I guess we'll find out.

Tomorrow is movement, so I'll let you guys know when I see any movement.

Unit profiles

Oh, wow. Just check out this new Warhammer Community post regarding the unit profiles that's coming up for 8th Edition. It's really big news, especially for people like me who play with Vehicles such as tanks and Walkers.

Long story short, here's a rundown of a list of changes:

Profiles now include unique movement distance for each unit. So Guardsmen will move shorter distances than Tyranid Hormagaunts will run faster than them (think 6" versus 12" movement in the movement phase).



VEHICLES. This is the one change that affects me drastically, given how I play tank-heavy lists or Imperial Knights. Now vehicles use the same profile as say, Monstrous Creatures. On the plus side, my tanks will have more than 10 wounds and my Imperial Knights will now have DOZENS of wounds each! WOOHOO! On the other hand, that means they're no longer immune to lasfire from my Guardsmen's lasguns. Don't worry, you'll need 500 Guardsmen firing at one Imperial Knight in order to put even just one wound on him.




The vehicle damage table is scrapped, and the Super Heavy Vehicle Rules are no more. So no need to worry about crew stunned, vehicle stunned, explodes (vehicles will just lose a bunch of wounds), weapon destroyed, etc. Yay. This might be more advantageous to my tanks now. I really hated how they die so easily all the time or lose a weapon to a penetrating result. With no Armor Values, and now everything down to Strength, Toughness and multiple Wounds, I don't have to worry about glancing or penetrating hits, and losing a weapon.



The Gorkanaut benefits from this because he's almost a Super-heavy. Now that the Super-heavy thing is gone, he can survive longer and punch harder because of his new stat-lines. Awesome for you Ork boyz who love your Deff Dreads, Gorkanauts, Morkanauts, etc.

Initiative is gone, so no more heroes striking first or whatever. Basically, whoever charges, strikes first.



BS and WS are no longer values, but roll dice values. Remember when my Leman Russ tanks used to be BS3, and the Tank Commander BS4? Now no longer. Actually, it's the same, but just phrased differently. In the new profile table, my Leman Russ tanks' BS is 4+ meaning I still need a roll of 4 and above to hit, and my Tank Commander will be 3+. So I don't have to look at the damned BS and WS table to check what rolls I need to hit. Well, it's easier for newcomers because we all know what BS does, but admittedly it makes WS and close combat rolls a lot easier without needing to refer to the damned WS table.

Strength and Toughness are the same, with one major change. Like Wounds, Strength is no longer capped at 10. So my Imperial Knights probably can get above Strength 10. It also seems that to compensate for that, high Strength weapons can deal multiple wounds, so my Leman Russ Tanks are still quite vulnerable. Uh oh.



Apparently Warhammer Community will release weapon stats tomorrow, so stay tuned and I'll keep you guys posted when more news about 8th Edition fall!

For the Emperor!

No more codex

Apparently for 8th Edition, the Codex will become obsolete.

Oh, well...why the heck did I spend so much money on my Astra Militrarum (I mean Imperial Guard) codex, and collecting all 3 Adeptus Mechanicus codices...I even bought the Imperial Knights codex TWICE (6th and 7th Edition) within the space of one year.

Anyway, it seems we'll be having General Handbook, universal rules are free (yay!) and we might have 3 types of gameplay, including Narrative and Competitive. And themed armies. Yeah. I'm stick with themed. If I recall, there's also something about points sticking around. Guess Games Workshop has to make a point, eh? :D

For the Emperor!

Jenkins

Oh my goodness. Regimental Standard killed off Jenkins.

Well, at least he's a colonel now. For the Emperor!

Records Expunged

Um, basically my external hard drive went nuts and I lost all my files. Especially my school documents.

That's why I haven't posted much lately, I was trying to fix the problem. I've sent it to the Tech-Priests in Mars to recover whatever data they can, and the Omnissiah willing, I hope they get it back. Otherwise all those years of undergraduate and graduate school readings, essays, etc. are all gone. And that hurts. A lot.

Fortunately, the Black Library ebooks I've purchased are still in my Kindle, so my reading is unaffected. Just know I'm in an extremely busy period for my semester (all the deadlines, essays and presentations are due over the next few weeks) so please don't mind me. Just assume I'm traveling in the Warp for an indetermined amount of time. Once my semester ends, I will go back to reading John French's Ahriman novels, and I'll write a book review for all four Ahriman books. I love the first book and I'm barely starting on the second now. It'll definitely take me a long while to read all four, just like The Razing of Prospero, so assume that I'm lost in the Warp for months before suddenly exiting it and finding myself back in Cadia. No, Cadia hasn't fallen, and the Warp does silly things with time, like sending me back into the past. Okay, never mind. That was bad.

Anyway, I'll go perform rituals for the Machine God to appease the machine spirit in my external hard drive and hope the Mechanicus adepts of Mars will be able to restore the lost data.

Awesome Ahzek Ahriman

Ahzek Ahriman is awesome.

No, really. I've started reading the Ahriman Collection, and reading it right after A Thousand Sons just put me in the right mood. Ahriman's character has been consistent, and I like how John French portrayed his character. A lesser evil among greater evils, with his dignity and honor still intact.

I can't wait to finish his books!