Reserving your reserves

Warhammer Community has posted on Tactical Reserves today!

There seem to be many changes on tactical reserves in 8th Edition. While there are still several similarities, for example, only certain units can be placed in reserves - much like units with the Deep Strike special rule of old, it seems that new units will have specific reserve rules in 8th Edition. So not everyone uses Deep Strike anymore! Terminators, for example, will "Teleport" instead of Deep Striking, and...



Genestealer Cults "Ambush" while Ork Kommandos sneak up. I don't know what my Kamikaze Troopers (Draconian Stormtroopers, Draconis's version of Cadian Kasrkins...cough, Militarum Tempestus Scions, cough...) will get. Maybe we still have Deep Strike, or...uh, grav-chute insertion or Infiltrate. I don't know. We'll find out when we get the rules for Imperial Guard, I guess. On the other hand, I don't think my Skitarii needs such rules. Heh. They can continue to Scout.

Warhammer Community gives one thematic example for the Trygon. Yay. It's no Mawloc, but I'm sure Jesse Sinclair will be super-happy with the new rules the Trygon gets (correct me if I'm wrong and if it's an old rule).



Sounds cool, right? Wow...that's pretty powerful. My Guardsmen will be quaking in their boots now. Thankfully most of my Guardsmen hide pretty safely in their Leman Russ tanks, so we'll just blast them apart with battle cannons, Punisher gatling cannons or Executioner plasma cannons the moment they rear their ugly head from underground. That is, if we don't get clawed apart in melee. Gulp.

Oh well...I guess that's what the Skitarii are for. Thankfully they're supposed to be Fearless (in the fluff) but I don't know how that's going to work out in the tabletop.

There's also one very interesting line in there. When you look at the wording, "at the end of ANY of your Movement phases, set up..." This means that you no longer roll for Reserves to come in! That's right! You get to decide when they come in and they seem to drop in automatically, as long as you meet the restrictions of the deployment, such as more than 9" away.



Apparently, while you can theoretically deploy your entire army from Reserve (Deep Strike the whole army!) in narrative and open play, you're not allowed to do that in matched play because of balance.



Long story short, you can only place a maximum of half your army in Reserve. You must start with at least half your army on the battlefield. And if you still have units in reserve by the third turn, unable to be called down, they count as destroyed. Gulp! But then, as mentioned earlier, it seems that the new Reserves allow for you to bring in your Reserves any time you want, and you no longer need to roll for them. That's pretty powerful. You get to decide when you want to deploy your Tactical Reserves, and they come in automatically duing, say, the Movement phase. You can also decide to hold your forces in Reserve and deploy them during the turn you think will make the most difference. The restriction, of course, is that you must deploy all of your Reserves by the end of your 3rd turn, or any remaining units in Reserve will be killed. Probably BLAM-ed by the Commissar for cowardice.

There's a slight hint here that we'll still be able to field an entire army of Deathwing Terminators. Interesting. Apparently Games Workshop is keeping true to their word that while Formations are gone, we'll still be able to use our existing Formation armies in one way or another. Most likely such Formations have been converted into Battle-forged Detachments. I can't wait to see what Battle-forged Detachment my Emperor's Fist Armored Company will be converted into!



We'll be taking about vehicles tomorrow, so stay tuned! I'll be keeping my eye on this article especially since it concerns my beloved Leman Russ tanks!