Battle-forged Armies

Hello again, everybody! Today, Warhammer Community has featured a new post on Battle-forged Armies! Let's take a look at what they have.




First news: We no longer have Formations. Oh boy...now this sucks for me, because with the exception of my Imperial Knight Baronial Court, all my armies actually use Formations. Those very familiar with my armies (which probably is nobody) should know by now that my Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus armies compose solely of Formations. My Draconian Armored Force uses the Cadian Battle Group (which I affectionately nicknamed Draconian Battle Group), and the core of my army is the Emperor's Fist Armored Company, supported by either the Emperor's Spear Aerial Company, a Militarum Tempestus platoon (bloody hell, just call them storm troopers), or a Super-heavy Support Element in the form of a Stormsword. And my Adeptus Mechanicus army comprises solely of the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation from that White Dwarf issue so long ago (I have yet to try the Adeptus Mechanicus Grand Convocation, sorry). With Formations gone, I'm pretty much screwed.

Not so, says Warhammer Community, who promises that I will be fine because they have a dozen new Battle-forged Detachments that are available to all factions. Apparently. So I am not forced into a Combined Arms Detachment, but I don't know if I'll benefit if I'm still forced to take Troops. I only have a couple of Veteran squads and lots of tanks, after all. I hope there's one Detachment that's all Heavy Support and no Troops, then I can field my squadrons of Leman Russ tanks and throw in some Psykers as an aside. Oh well.

Oh, right. And Flyers now have their own slot. So my Vendetta gunships will not be slugging out with, say, Sentinels or other Fast Attack options. Not that I've any other Fast Attack options other than Vendetta gunships. Hmm...




Depending on the Detachment you choose, you might be forced to take more Troops, for example, but in return you get Command Points. Yay. They featured a few Detachments such as Patrol Detachment, Battalion Detachment and Brigade Detachment. The more stuff you're forced to take, the more Command Points you get. Sounds good to me, as it will even the playing field against someone like me who spams nothing but tanks. What troubles me is that these Detachments do not have Lords of War or Fortifications? So I can't take Baneblades (or Stormswords) in these Detachments? Weird.



I also wonder if Imperial Knights can be taken as Lords of War in any Imperium faction, but who knows? We shall see. It'll be fun if I can take various stuff from Armies of the Imperium in a single detachment. For example, Tech-priests Dominus for HQ, Skitarii soldiers for Troops, Psykers for HQ/Elites, Leman Russ tanks for Heavy Support, Vendetta gunships for Flyers and an Imperial Knight for Lord of War. I mean, that's actually pretty fluffy if you ask me.

And one last thing. It looks like Battle-forged armies can be played with or without points. I wonder what's the point of points, but I'm sure the veterans can give a few pointers on points. Competitive play will have extra rules and restrictions, so this sounds good. I wonder if I can spam Leman Russ tanks and Imperial Knights now that I don't have to worry about points. Then again, my opponent might not be too happy about it, so...oh well. Never mind.



Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted when Warhammer Community releases more news regarding 8th Edition tomorrow. The Emperor protects!

The Great Rift

Warhammer Community posted on the Great Rift today.

Not going to say much since you can pretty much read everything in the original in the link above. I guess I'll be saying how this affects the Draconis system.

The Imperial armies of the Draconis system will play a major role in the Indomitus Crusade. The Draconis system was fortunate enough to remain on the "good" side of Segmentum Solar, but legions of the Draconian Armored Imperial Guard regiment will be sent both to Armageddon sector and launched on a crusade to reconquer Cadia. Cadia, after all, remains a talismanic prize that the Imperium dearly loves to reclaim.



Just read about Cadia here, if you don't believe me. The Imperium has clearly not abandoned Cadia, and it has not fallen.

Cadia
The fortress world of Cadia Prime - once the keystone of the Imperium's defence against the Chaos hordes of the Eye of Terror - was smashed into submission by Abaddon the Despoiler. Its ruined remains still lie at the heart of the Cadian Sector, a talismanic prize that the Imperium would dearly love to reclaim.



I'll probably try to put all this in the Mere Mortals story I'm writing in the summer, but basically Draconis is affected by the Great Rift in unexpected ways. Even though the Draconis system is not cut off from the larger Imperium, the great Warp storms and cataclysmic events across the galaxy has awakened dormant psykers in Draconis III. Which means I'll be adding Primaris Psykers to my army. I'll probably use Guardsmen models for my Psykers because I can't say I like the Wrydvane Psykers, but yeah. A squad of Guardsmen psykers, with the company command officer playing the role of a Primaris Psyker. We shall see. I'll do adjustments with spare parts, using weird stuff to do a force stave or something. We shall see.

Anyway, expect more psykers, so yeah...this means the Imperial Guard regiments of Draconis, the Draconian Armor, will have psykers alongside tanks. And the Imperial Knights will definitely feature strongly - House Yato will march alongside the Leman Russ tank squadrons of the Draconian Armor. Adeptus Mechanicus...hmm, I don't know, but I guess the Skitarii will follow too, but they won't play as huge a role, maybe? Anyway, I'll be shifting the conflict toward an Imperium versus Chaos conflict so as to streamline the plot instead of messily floundering between factions.

The Thousand Sons have their eyes on the growing psyker population of the Draconian Armored Force, so that will also play a huge role in my story. Are the Thousand Sons allies with sinister motives (in ther fight against other factions of Chaos), or are they deliberately steering the Draconian forces down the same road of damnation that they once walked? We'll find out.



Large swathes of Draconian Armored Force and noble courts of Imperial Knights from House Yato shall march onward to reclaim Cadia in the Indomitus Crusade. Several regiments will be sent to Armageddon, no doubt, but I'll focus on a particular crusade against Chaos. Mere Mortals will feature the brave and valiant Guardsmen of the Draconian Armored and their Imperial Knight allies against the Death Guard and Chaos Daemons of Nurgle on a once propsering agri-world that has fallen to the plagues of the diseased chaos god. Reinforced by the Adeptus Mechanicus and their maniples of cybernetically augmented Skitarii warriors, the armies of the Imperium will attempt to reclaim the sick and dying world from the clutches of Grandfather Nurgle. Unknown to both sides, the Thousand Sons watch and wait, their enmity against Montarion for speaking out against their Primarch, Magnus, during the Council of Nikaea still simmering beneath the surface.

As these five great factions collide, a secret buried deep within that world will be revealed for the first time in millennia...

The morale of the story

Warhammer Community has once again posted about 8th Edition. The morale of the story? Don't lose morale.

Good news. No more falling back or running away, no more sweeping advance, no more pinning, no more regrouping, etc. Morale has been simplified. At the end of every turn, you take a new morale test. Any units that suffered casualties in a turn must take a morale test. You roll D6, and add that number to the number of casualties that unit has suffered. If the sum is larger than the leadership, than deduct the leadership from that sum, and you lose that many additional models.

To give a concrete example, let's say my Veteran Guardsmen squad comes after bolter fire from Traitor Marines (what other Marines will shoot at my loyal Guardsmen?). I lose 4 of them to combined bolter fire and missile launchers and whatever. Ouch. I roll a D6 and roll a 6. So I add 4 to 6 and I have 10. Unfortunately, my leadership is 8, so I effectively lose 10-8=2 more guardsmen. 2 more Guardsmen bite the dust, in other words (represents them running away or being BLAM-ed by a Commissar). So in the end I only have 4 more Guardsmen left. Ouch. Just...ouch. Conversely, if I'm lucky enough to roll a 4 instead, I lose no Guardsmen. So it seems the new morale test is largely dependent on the dice gods.



Furthermore, it seems more punishing for...blobs? I mean, I play an armored company so I'm not worried about my Stormtroopers and Veterans who will largely move around in squads of 5 and 10, but combined squads of 50-men platoons (5 platoon squads) will suffer horrendously, will they not? I mean, even if they lose 10 men, for example, and I roll a 6. That's a whooping 16. And with a poor leadership of 8, that means they lose 8 more Guardsmen. The 50-men platoon will drop down to 32, wouldn't it? That kind of...sucks. Even if I'm lucky enough to roll 1, I'll still at least lose 3 men. What the...

Maybe the Commissar will do something about that, because thanks to the change in morale tests, I don't think the Commissar's BLAM ability will remain the same. Phew. Maybe you'll always only lose 1 model in return for not needing to take a morale test.



I don't think Vehicles are fearless in this edition, but thankfully you only have, what, squadrons of 3 Leman Russ tanks at most? Given how leadership is usually 8, even if I lose 1 tank, I probably will still be able to mitigate the loss. I mean, even if I roll a 6, even if I've lost 2 tanks, I'll still have a total sum of 8, which is equal to the standard Guardsmen leadership. So no loss there. Yay. My Imperial Knights and Baneblades/Stormswords and other stuff who are one-model units do not need to test for morale. YAY! So my Imperial Knight and Stormsword will effectively remain fearless. Woohoo. I suspect the same for my Onager Dunecrawler squadrons, because of their 3-Dunecrawler squadrons not needing to test because even if I roll a 6, as I said earlier, I'll only get a sum total of 8, which is the standard Skitarii leadership. WOOHOO.

Anyway, we'll get some background and lore tomorrow, which will be useful when I finally start writing Mere Mortals in the summer. For the Emperor! Oh, and it seems we'll have Battle-Forged Armies on Friday, but unless they talk about Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus armies, I'm not sure I'll be interested. I'll keep an eye out for it and keep you guys posted if they do say anything about Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus!

Charge to fight

Sorry about yesterday, I was busy with school. Such is the life of a graduate student. Ugh. I'm actually still busy today, but I thought to myself, "screw my essays for the time being, let's seek refuge in the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000!"

Not a good idea...I mean, there are more...uh, cheerful and brighter universes to seek refuge in after all...



Anyway, let's charge into the charge phase, and I might as well cover the fight phase today as well, to catch up. Besides, the two are intricately linked, so it might be better to merge the posts. First we start off with the charge phase that Warhammer Community posted yesterday.

For the most part, charging works the same way. You still pick a target within 12" of your charging units, and roll 2D6. You still need to roll 2D6" equal or higher to get into combat, and the charged enemy unit can still fire overwatch. It's still snapfire, so yeah, overwatch still only hits on rolls of 6s.

But the good news is that we don't need to reach base contact like the current edition. When you roll 2D6" and your charging units make it within 1" of the targeted enemy unit, they get locked into combat. So it's 1" easier to get into combat in 8th Edition than in 7th Edition. Yay...I guess? Ugh, not a good thing for my poor Guardsmen.



You can't move within 1" of an enemy you didn't declare as the target of your charge. Here's an example. Let's say you want your Raptors, to charge my 2 squads of Guardsmen. You need to have at least 2 squads of Raptors or some other squad or unit to charge my 2nd squad of Guardsmen - then you can declare that they will charge both and your 2 squads of Raptors can move within 1" of each Guardsmen squad. However, if you only have 1 Raptor squad and you chose to charge 1 of my squads, you cannot place your Raptors within 1" of my 2nd squad of Guardsmen. Cool so far? Okay, here's the caveat of being able to charge both my squads of Guardsmen. If you declare you're going to charge both, then I have the luxury of having both squads fire overwatch at your Raptors, and then have both squads fire overwatch again at your 2nd charging squad. Because I can fire overwatch multiple times in the new edition. On the other hand, once my Guardsmen are locked in combat with the Raptors, they can't fire overwatch any longer.

So what happens once you get into combat? Well, let's take a look at Warhammer Community's post on the fight phase to see what happens next.



If you remember the new profiles, then you probably recall there's no more Initiative. Instead, whoever charges gets to strike first. So your Raptors would always hit first, even in subsquent turns of combat. My poor Guardsmen...sigh. On the other hand, if my Guardsmen had fixed their bayonets and desperately charged your Raptors, then my Guardsmen will always hit first.

When you strike, you gain a free 3" move toward the closest enemy. By doing so, if you move within 1" of another enemy, you can drag them into melee as well and prevent them from shooting next turn. Worst, they can't Overwatch. Ugh. So your Raptors can hit my first squad of Guardsmen, then when they swing, move 3" toward my 2nd squad of Guardsmen. If I was stupid enough to place them 4" away from my first squad, both squads will be dragged into melee with the Raptors, without the 2nd squad being able to overwatch, and they can't shoot next turn either. Sucks to be a Guardsman. At least we aren't Fire Warriors.



I have no freaking clue what Warhammer Community is talking about next when regarding how we take it in turns to activate combat across the board. Must be referring to how you can choose to move 3" toward the nearest enemy unit to drag everyone into a massive, free-for-all brawl. I don't know, that's my guess anyway.

It seems like we Guardsmen have a chance of triumphing over Khorne Berzerkers in melee combat now (okay, I'm deliberately misreading the post and deluding myself).

Oh and combat is easier now without needing that whole Weapon Skill table, which made things annoying. Now everyone has a fixed roll on which they hit on. I suppose Guardsmen will only hit on a 4+, which kind of sucks, but it's better than nothing. Well, at least we Guardsmen will have new rules for our close combat weapons. I don't think our bayonets will get anything, but power weapons, chainswords (for Commissars) and the like will at least gain special rules such as armor penetration or deal multiple wounds to the enemy model. Maybe even Instant Death. We shall see.

I have to say, the new melee combat system doesn't bode well for my poor Guardsmen. Maybe my Imperial Knights and Skitarii will benefit. We shall see. But Imperial Knights will probably still stomp and rip things apart with their Reaper chainsword, while my Skitarii assassins (Sicarian Ruststalkers and Sicarian Infiltrators) will have some nifty rules for their transonic or taser weapons. Yay. We shall see.

Don't run away! I know you're all scared from shooting, psychic powers and close combat, but we still need to talk about morale tomorrow!

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...