Santa Klaws Rulez...

As promised, the rules I came up with (and by now should be using in an apoc game) for Santa Klaws and his Sleigh...

UNIT OR FORMATION NAME: Santa Klaws POINTS: 250

DESCRIPTION:

Oi get your choppas out,

'ear the umiez cry,

Giv em all a clout,

and watch em all die...

Santa Klaws is coming, to WAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

SANTA KLAWS:

	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Santa	5	2	5	5	3	4	4	9	6

Santa is equipped with Power Klaw, Eavy Armour, Cybork Body, and Santas Sack of Prezzies, Santas Sleigh.

Santas Sack of Prezzies.

At the start of the shooting phase, choose one Ork unit within 12” of Santa, and roll on the following table.

D6	Result
1	Lumps of Coal. The boyz have been bad. The unit cannot do anything this turn except cry.
2	The unit gets shiny new choppas and sluggas but no tactical change
3	As above, but these ones are snazzier, so the orks feel even better. No tactical difference, but they're happy.
4	Lotsa Ammo – Santa has given out extra bullets, all guns get +1 shot this turn
5	Wooly jumpers – The extra thick layers give +1 to the armour save this turn
6	Med Packs – The unit has FNP this turn!

The effect of Santas Sack lasts for one turn only. No unit can receive a second gift from the sack. That wouldn't be fair.

SANTAS SLEIGH:

	BS	Front Armour	Side Armour	Rear Armour
Santas Sleigh	2	11	11	10

Fast, Chariot, Open Topped, Red Paint Job, 2 twin linked dakkaguns, Exhaust Cloud, 4 Joy Seeking Missiles, A very Special Task. The sleigh has 4 hull points.

Joy Seeking Missiles.

Read out the name of the missile. Whoever has the biggest smile (friend or foe) is the target. That players most expensive unit is targeted.

Range unlimited, no LOS required. AP2 One shot heavy 1 hits on 2+. All are fired at once. Str variable*

*If the person is upset at this turn of events, the missiles are Str 6. If they are ok with things, they are Str 8. If they find the whole episode hilarious, Str 10.

A very Special Mission

If this unit is being used in December, it can choose to be a flyer during any turn. It must be a flyer for the complete turn. As a flyer the rider can vector strike instead of doing his sweep attack.

If the flyer is shot down, the unit that shot it down is immediately targeted by the nearest unit (friend or foe) and an out of sequence shooting attack is directed against it, as everyone is mad at them for spoiling Christmas. Furthermore, all units on the board (including the “friendly” ones) have preferred enemy against THAT unit for the remainder of the game. Whichever player ordered the unit to shoot down Santa can expect to receive abuse from all other players for doing the most callous thing since Alan Rickman called off Christmas...

Cities of Death in 6th Edition

 In the new year I plan to run a Crusade of Fire based campaign at my local gaming club. As any battles fought over Hive City tiles require a Cities of Death game to be played, I thought I'd have a look over the rules and bring them in line with sixth edition.

For starters, I'd say we need to take into account the rule changes sixth edition has brought. To that end, there are some basic rule changes to clear up first.

NOT all units are scoring, nor does it matter how many survivors there are in a scoring unit. Troops only score, others deny, and unit strength is irrelevent.

Deep Strike, Reserves, Dusk and Dawn, Random Game Length, Infiltrate... these are all basic parts of the game now, so anywhere that says "If these rules are being played" can be ignored. Likewise anything that let's that rule be played is fairly irrelevent.

Anything that talks about determining Line of Sight can be ignored, we use True Line of Sight now.

I will also suggest using the secondary objectives that we have come to know in sixth edition.

 All good so far? I can see you're enthralled!

Moving on, deployment. Now Cities of Death missions all used table quarters deployment. I did consider updating this to 6th ed deployments, but with the fact that Cities of Death had it's own different deployment when it was released and it isn't updates that have left it looking different, I will stick with table quarters. There will not be a specific order to what you deploy or alternating deployment - player 1 deploys their forces in their quarter, not within 12" of the centre. Player 2 then does the same. Player 1 gets first turn, unless player 2 siezes the initiative.

 A couple of other specific changes to the rules as listed in the book.

Page 9 - Rubble is listed as a 4+ cover. This needs to be a 5+ to bring it in line with 6th ed.

Page 34 - Command Centre - the secondary option for this is in relation to the long out of use Target Priority Checks. Best just to ignore this secondary power and stick to the primary power if you use this strategem.

Page 40 - As mentioned earlier, deep strike and infiltrate are now part of the game, these strategums are redundant. The sewer rats strategum is still useful though.

Page 45-46 - All rules are in line with 6th edition, these pages can be pretty much ignored.

The Missions

Firesweep
At the end of the mission each planted flag counts as 3vp.

High Ground
The objective building is worth 3vp to the side that claims it.

Domination
Each occupied ruin is worth 3vp to the holder.

Maximum Attrition
Each unit destroyed is worth 1vp to the opposition.

Urban Assault
Each objective building is worth 3vp to the holder.


There are also some special missions, but they're different enough in their own special rules that they don't really need modifying. Just use a little common sense and you'll be fine.

Hope all this is useful to someone, and I will be blogging about the campaign over on my personal blog when it all starts off, and will try to keep the writeups both characterful and also useful to anyone who wishes to run their own Crusade of Fire campaign in the future.

Sixth Edition Initiation Game

About 4 months after the rest of the internets I have finally got round to playing my first game of sixth edition. Unfortunately it was at rather short notice. So I rocked up at Ginges house today and borrowed his Ork army for my first game of sixth against his necrons. Essentially playing Orks for the first time against an army I have never played against using a game system I haven't yet played.... so didn't expect to win, however I wasn't expecting things to go quite as badly as it did. So I'm going to use this more of a run down on my feelings of sixth rather then a battle report.

Mission and Deployment
We ended up playing Big guns never Tire with Vanguard deployment type. Not necessarily my ideal deployment type for this game but no matter. I won the roll for deployment and decided to go first. I was hoping to be able to hit Ginges' lines without having to take too many turns of shooting. Didn't quite work out that way though.

Charging:
I think that charging has become a far bigger risk now in 6th edition. With random charge length and overwatch shooting. Frankly, charging large squads in cover with a squad of Orks is more or less pointless. I lost so many models from overwatch fire, by the time I had struck last in combat, the orks were causing less casualties then the crons. Removal of the nearest models doesn't help this either, as trying to thin a squad out prior to charging with shooting just means you have to charge further, making reaching combat less likely, while still having to face a round of overwatch shooting (even if you don't roll high enough to reach combat!?!). This is made even worse in the case of necrons with the nearest models dying, then making their ressurection rolls and resurfacing further away from the assaulting squad, while still being close enough to provide rapid fire overwatch shots.

Challenges:
Frankly, probably the worst army to face challenges against, mind shackle scarabs vs a low leadership army are brutal. Meaning you have a choice between not participating in a combat with your hard as nails Ork, or killing yourself in the second round of combat. Though even if you challenge in the first round of combat (negating the MSS) chances are the lord will just stand back up and either kill you or get you to kill yourself the following combat. Not exactly the cinematic effect GW were aiming for in this case.

Hull Points:
Necrons strip hull points from tanks with grim efficiency, half a squad of shooting would have been slagging land raiders with Ginges rolling in this game. No vehicle survived past the first thing to shoot at it. Frankly it's pointless even talking about it.

Aircraft:
Proved to be entirely ineffective this game, with two dakka jets putting about 18 wounds on a squad of necrons (though Ginge had cleverly placed his lord with 2+ save closest to where they would enter play) meaning he lost about 2 necrons and a single wound on his lord (which the 2 crons just resurrected). When shot at by Ginges annihilation barges they just dropped out the sky. Although needing sixes to hit, with twin linked weapons that score 3 hits for every six rolled, and me failing all the jink saves, well they didn't last long. Against armies that don't have such efficient AA weapons, I can see flyers being hugely effective. Though my inexperience proved to be there downfall more then anything though.

Overall:
I quite enjoyed my first game of sixth, frankly given the circumstances of this game (and Ginges' insanely lucky rolling, I think he probably won't roll another 6 for a good few months) despite it being a complete whitewash I still had a fun time.

I think the game overall has shifted to more of a shooting game, even more then 5th. Which is going to be a pain for my Tyranids (though the loss of no retreat wounds, means they should last twice as long in combat).

I think I will have to try out my Tyranids and Tau next.

Super Heavies Scalped by Sixth?

Having played my first apocalypse game of sixth edition on Sunday (with no str D weapons in any army, so no chance to test the idea of making D less the auto win gun) I have discovered that super heavies are not all they once were...

Sure, they're still durable as hell. You can still chain reaction one to death if you're lucky, but the odds aren't good. Being able to whittle them down a little by gradually glancing away the structure points makes them easier to deal with (slightly) though you can of course use techs and meks to repair some of those hull points. No what I found was that they were far easier to effectively take out of the game.

Assuming you aren't snap-firing...

For the uninitiated, super heavies used to have their own damage table. low results would stun a gun or the driver. mid table would knock off a gun or give a half-immobilised result. And the high results would take off structure points. The big guns, your primary weapons, had a 4+ save against stunning and damaging. The enemy would generally shoot at the big thing and when you failed a 4+ on the big gun they may think "ok that will do that's a lot less damage it can do to me next turn, I can finally shoot something else"

Move forward to sixth, and they use the same damage table as basic 40k. The only difference being immobilised is drive damaged (so half immobilised, takes two to stop it) and that explodes is remove a structure point and roll again, without modifiers. For killing the things it seems to be on a par with before. A succession of 6s can instant kill, but it's unlikely. But for shutting the super heavy out of the game, all it takes is one penetrating hit. You roll and get a crew shaken or stunned result, and your job is effectively done! Why? Because it effects ALL the guns at once. You still get a 4+ save for primary weapons, but taking the baneblade as an example, you've just lost your demolisher cannon, your two lascannons are hitting on 6s, the 3 twin linked heavy bolters likewise (though weight of shots and twin linked means they aren't as effected as the lascannons) and you're one bad dice roll from losing your mega cannon. Statistically two hits and all you have is a bunch of heavy bolters for 450 points. The enemy doesn't have to chuck masses of firepower at them anymore... as soon as it's shaken they can move on to other targets. Part of the benefit of super heavies would be their nature as bullet magnets, allowing the rest of your forces to advance unmolested. Will this still be the case? It also puts more of an onus on the first turn - if you go second you may never get chance to fire your super heavies... at least going first you have chance to fire them at least once!

I have no solution to this issue, and I am not looking for one. I can just see the nature of apocalypse mutating to make super heavies far less effective than they once were. Are Games Workshop going to rely on people rarely playing apocalypse and thus not noticing? It seems unprecedented for them to make a massive kit like the baneblade less effective than it used to be, unless they are relying on people just simply wanting one without thinking about when or if they will ever field it...

Do note, that this does not affect my previous article on Str D weapons. That was about balancing the warhound options out to make viable choices of all weapons and I stand by it. If anything this issue makes the new rules for Str D better as they'd still be able to fire while snap firing - a titan armed with plenty of old str D and nothing else may find itself easy to shut out of a game.

The Problem with Strength D

The gun that can do anything...

With an apocalypse game approaching I was discussing the subject with the local GW manager, and he expressed a bit of a dislike for apoc (I consider him a friend so won't be grassing him up :oP) as he says it's too easy to break the game just by taking lot's of Strength D weapons. And he does have a point. I have made the claim before that the amount of super heavies you have isn't nearly as telling as the amount of Str D you have. I once played a game where my five super heavies took on my opponents two... however when it came to Str D he was putting out 5 shots per turn to my 1, and with him holding his supers in reserve and walking them on turn 1 (careful planning strategum) he killed my Str D before it could fire. From then on he was ripping through me with Str D while my Str 8 or 9 shots just bounced off his tanks, or barely scratched them. The combination of Auto Penetrate and the +1 on vehicle damage meant that he was taking structure points off with half his shots, and tearing through my tanks. Now this is what they are for fair enough, but once he'd finished those off, he found they were equally good at annihalating infantry. And THAT I think is the problem with Str D - there is no downside. They're good at everything, the jack of all trade weapon. Why would you take any other gun when this one does everything anyway?

An unfamiliar titan... one with a variety of guns!

This has lead to some rather boring titan loadouts where someone brings out a forgeworld reaver that has two laser destroyer arms and a laser destroyer shoulder weapon, putting out a formidable 8 Str D shots per turn. Now from what I remember of the fluff the titans were usually armed with a variety of weapons to deal with a variety of foes, cos let's face it they aren't the easiest things to swap a gun on. The turbo lasers were for killing enemy titans, but they'd have maybe an apoc launcher for dealing with enemy infantry and a plasma blastgun for tagets that are classed as "in-between." But how often are such varietous loadouts seen on titans? Why bother, when Str D does everything better than the rest anyway?


In discussion, we thought that it might be best to take away the blast rule to make the weapon less effective against infantry. My friend said that in his opinion, the only reason it was blast in the first place was so that it would be better at hitting larger vehicles than small ones - a large blast can feasibly miss an ork truk, a land raider is a harder thing to miss, and a baneblade damn near impossible to miss! So to try to keep that effect in place, I suggested increasing the BS when shooting at larger targets. After all, you can't say that a solitary guardsmen would be as easy to hit as a baneblade. So perhaps +1 BS against vehicles (and monstrous creatures too?) with a further +1 (that stacks) against super heavies and gargantuans. Meaning a Baneblade is still practically impossible to miss, a land raider the odds are you're gonna hit it, while a guardsmen you just fire in roughly the right direction and hope to hit near enough to fry the guy.

Consulting with a friend who actually uses titans (and therefore my theoretical hard sell on this issue) he said that he wouldn't want to see the Str D completely useless against infantry, but could see we had something of a point. He agreed that having to make a tactical decision between the different guns would be more interesting than just taking Str D as it does everything. He came up with the rather good suggestion of two fire modes - focused or dispersed, similar to the Tau Hammerhead shooting mode.

After haggling between the three of us I decided the following would be a good new profile for Str D weapons

focused mode - Str D, NO BLAST, +1 BS against vehicles, +2 against super heavies/gargantuan
dispersed mode - Str7, AP2, Large Blast.

The dispersed mode would still wound most things on 2s, but allows cover saves. It doesn't instant death T4, or disregard FNP for T4. Basically, it'll still kill marines in the open, but if it's a tough unit (Paladins, nob bikers) it won't brutalise them.

I need to look into it a little more to be sure - I believe there may be one or two Str D weapons out there that currently don't have blast (the daemon shell strategic asset springs to mind, though don't quote me on that I need to check) and I don't want to GIVE them an anti infantry capability they aren't designed to have, they can stay as they are. But I may try experimenting with it as a house rule to see how it takes.


There is an upside for the titan lovers... with it no longer being blast, you can potentially snap fire. Those pesky flyers you've been unable to touch? sure they'll be tough to hit... but if you do hit them, bye bye...

Dogfight Fail

So the other day I took the opportunity offered by Forge World units and the new dual FOC list at 2k to play something I've always wanted to try - an aircav guard army. I had one vet squad to act as forward spotters, the rest of the army was a command squad and vets riding valkyries and vendettas, with two twl punisher cannon vultures plus a thunderbolt and lightning (very very frightning galileo galileo figaro) as heavy support. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped, due to me not spotting one small rule in the aircraft section - ALL aircraft can choose to use skyfire if they wish.

Now in the old apoc rules for flyers everything hit them on 6s, even other flyers. This made sense - if a ground based gun struggles to hit me as I zoom by at 200mph then how the hell are two fighters passing each other at a combined speed of 400mph gonna be more likely to get a better shot off? Unless of course they are dedicated air superiority fighters. As such the thunderbolt, a ground attack fighter, laden with bombs plus some autocannons and a lascannon, could barely touch other aircraft. The air superiority fighter lightning had the AA rule for it's guns, meaning it hit on normal BS and was good at taking out other flyers. This all made sense. Of course, with ALL flyers having the ability to have skyfire if they choose to, air superiority fighters become useless. The bigger and heavier the plane the better - it's less likely to get taken in one, and more likely to have the firepower to punch you out in one. Which is what happened to me. A solitary stormraven took out most of my airforce. It would boost up to one and multimelta plus two missiles to the face... while the assault cannon would be machine spirited at a separate target. The head on attack usually got the job done, while the assault cannon would certainly clip the wings of the other target.

Disagree? Take the following example.

In todays world, putting the following two against each other with equally skilled pilots should have a clear winner.

The apache will kick arse out of ground targets, but the fighter should nail it easily enough. I consider the 40k equivalent to these to be the Vulture and the Lightning.

Now my vulture with twin linked punisher cannon comes in at 155. My lightning, including 6 skystrike missiles for true anti air prowess, comes in at 205. I'll even give the lightning first shot. Now i'm not normally one to math-hammer, but just run the averages here. Assuming head on, as we will have entered from own table edge.

Lightning fires autocannon, twin linked lascannon, and two missiles. Hitting on 4s. So one autocannon hit, the reroll should see the lascannon hit 75% of the time, and you'd certainly have one missile hit with a 50% chance for a second. I'll round up and say they both hit. That's 3 str 7 and 1 str 9 hits. Front armour of vulture - 12. So a 3+ to damage with the lascannon - let's call that a pen. a 5 to damage with the rest. Call that 1 glance. Then of course there's the possibility of a jink save which might get rid of one of them. Even if we choose to ignore that, unless we get a good roll on the pen hit, that's still a live opponent.

Vultures turn, with it's anti infantry gun. 20 shots, hitting on 4s, twin linked. So 15 hits. Glancing on 5s. That's 5 hp. Even with the jink save, 3 should still go through. Which is one more hp than the lightning has even before any penetrating hits are rolled.

I consider the vulture to be ground attack. The stormraven likewise, and my vultures and vendettas. They're the helicopter equivalent, for fire support and troop carrying in support of ground operations. They should fear the dedicated flyer. Not swat it like an annoying insect. This is the first thing I have not liked about sixth edition so I'm not gonna toss my toys from the pram over it. But while it seems to be encouraging us all to take flyers, it seems which flyers you take could be key... and the stormraven seems like a rock solid top choice so far. Oh joy, Grey Knights have yet another of the best toys.

*Cross Posted From Need More Tanks*

Drop Complete!

It has been long in the coming but Dropzone Commander is here at last!  I've just taken a detour on my way home from work to pick it up and I now can't wait to start building, painting, playing and collecting a second army!

After I had dug through all the packing peanuts and disposed of the cardboard I was able to reveal this little collection:

My order consisted of: The rulebook, a UCM premium starter army, a pair of Archangel Interceptors and a pair of Falcon Gunships. First impressions are excellent, the models look to be well cast and the book looks good quality.

I chose the premium edition army to get the KR mini-case and I'm glad I did as it will allow me to keep everything somewhere together and safe.  The internal foam liner is the standard pick and pluck type with a nice little DZC cut out on the top layer.  There are three layers to the box, the bottom of which has cut outs for the removed flying stands.   The KR case itself is the standard that is to be expected from KR and hard to fault.  I must admit at the time of ordering I thought it would be slightly larger than it is, not that this is a problem or a reason to not buy one!

The rulebook is not overly hefty but Hawk have managed to fit a good deal of background and rules into its 152 pages.  In a move I find slightly strange the book starts off with the background to the game world before starting on the rules and then the scenarios.  It finishes off nicely with the source material for the four races the UCM, the Scourge, the PHR and the Shaltari.  As Ken has said in his posts there are no prizes for guessing at who is who when comparing to the 40k universe.  Having all four races listed together, I think, is a stroke of genius as firstly it means you don't have to buy expensive extra codex books (although I'm sure before long there will be some source books) and non-collectors of the different races can get some intel on how they will perform on the battlefield.  Some may argue this will make the game purely revolve around the luck of dice roles but I think it will actually improve the level of competitiveness in games and make you rely more on winning strategy to overcome your foe.

The rules look to be a mix of those that we are already used to plus some variations on a theme, for example wounds in shooting are calculated using weapon energy and target armour value.  I am sure we will have some discussion over the rules in the coming days as we get chance to read them!  The book is colour throughout which is nice, and something that GW only seem to have cottoned on to recently.  In some places the text looked a little fuzzy to me, possibly as a result of textured backgrounds rather than bad printing, but otherwise it is good quality print and paper.  

Onto the models now - In the starter army you seem to get a good mixture of units with some AA vehicles, some main battle tanks, some infantry and transport and the all important drop ships.  The models look great and I can't wait to start putting them together and cracking on with the painting.

The models are an interesting mix of resin and white metal.  The infantry, shown on the right here are resin bases with metal soldiers whilst the vehicles and aircraft shown below are all made of resin with, in the case of aircraft, plastic bases.  

The two other items that I ordered make up a small fleet of aircraft, a pair of fighters and a pair of light ground attack aircraft.  I chose these, not realising that with the limitations of units (similar to force organisations for WFB where you are limited on special units depending on the size of force) I legally wouldn't be able to fit them into armies.  Hopefully however, and given that Ken has some aircraft in his proto-collection, we will be able to come to an amicable agreement and start using them straight away!


All in all I'm very happy with this as a starter collection although I can immediately see how I plan to extend by including a command vehicle and drop ship, some Praetorians and possibly a couple of heavy tanks.  After that I think I will probably get a PHR force because the photos in the book look really cool and have given me serious army jealousy towards Ken!  I could quite easily see me ending up with one of each of the four armies in the future however!


Now all that I need to do is decide on a paint scheme, hmm...urban, desert, winter or woodland, decisions decisions...

Some thoughts on 6th edition - Part 1

Having had a read of some of the new rules I thought it would be interesting to start a bit of a debate on the latest edition and to share my thoughts on it. In this part I will look at what I think are the key changes in the basic rules for moving, shooting, assault and morale.

The movement phase seems to have somewhat thinned down but nothing overly noteworthy appears to have happened here. The shooting phase is a different kettle of fish!

The first, and my favourite rule is the change back to the second edition style of play whereby only models in a squad that actually move count as moving, allowing half a squad to redeploy to counter a threat whilst still allowing heavy weapons to fire. I also like the addition of the snap shot rule allowing non-blast/template weapons that are normally move or shoot to fire at BS1 on the move.

The new wound pool method of allocating wounds to the closest model until it dies should be quite interesting as it means multi-wound squads such as Tau battle suits will become slightly less survivable as they get forced to take break tests quicker than they would have done before. I think it will only be a matter of time before people start to counter this by clever deployment of models within the squad to protect more valuable troops; although it does produce a slight quandary over where to position meltaguns!

The assault phase has had some positive inclusions, such as AP on close combat weapons, although I still find it amazing that a guardsman's rusty bayonet is just as like to slip through power armour as a chainsword swung by a superhuman augmented warrior! I also don't like the fact that pistols are not taken into account for AP but hey-ho at least it's a step in the right direction.  More on weapons at a later date however...

I also love the idea of over watch fire allowing the defending unit to snap shoot at the attackers as they come barrelling towards them, that conjures up some great images of brave guardsmen hastily shooting at a rampaging enemy under the command of rock steady officers!

However, I do believe they have made a right hash of the basic rules of the assault phase. Firstly they have made the highest initiative strikes first massively over complicated, especially with introducing the pile in moves part way through. My opinion is a simple statement as per fifth edition of models strike in initiative order was fine and adding in the pile ins will just make it more complicated.

The other new rule I can't abide is the everyone rolls 2D6 for charge range! Not only does this mean an army like a BA red flea army can be in combat in turn 1 it also makes them horrifically open to failing a charge at a crucial moment. I really struggle to see how in a group of highly trained jump-packed warriors Bob trips as the unit charge and so the whole squad stops to pick him up and brush him down in the face of the enemies guns?! The converse to this is that a bunch of lumbering terminators can somehow cover a quarter of a standard battlefield in one charge! Come on GW that rule is just daft! I could understand it before when units charged through cover but having to do it every assault will seriously discourage me from taking an assault orientated army!

I also don't like the disordered charge rule, how can a unit that is charging all pent up and ready to unleash hell somehow looses this advantage just because they happen to engage two units?

Morale seems to have changed very little between editions, with the exception of the introduction of a rule allowing you to shoot at BS1 as units fall back.  I think this is a great addition representing the need for units to provide cover fire in a disciplined fall back manoeuvre or just the sheer blind panic spray and pray attempts to cover one's own backside in a rout!

That's all for a fairly text heavy post, next time I'll start to look at some of the more advanced rules. Over to you for your thoughts and comments!

Allies in 6th edition

One of the huge changes to the game for 6th edition will be the inclusion of rules for allies in normal games (in the grim darkness of the far future, there are only hugs :-P), while the internets have been all a flutter with this potentially breaking the game and making some armies unstoppable with the combination of special rules and units available.

I am slightly more optimistic though, while sooner (rather then later) powerful and nasty combinations are bound to get out and be abused, due to the ever evolving nature of the online community, these lists will spread like wildfire, then be demolished by the next abusive list or countered through tactics and rewritten army lists. On the other hand, there are some people looking at this in another light, looking for that something extra special to add to their fluffy armies, or their themed armies. Such as my Halo themed space wolf army. This was a 500 point force for a doubles tournament and I had a great time painting and converting the models and was really pleased with the result.

However with the two squads of Grey Hunters, long fangs and Razorbacks, I was swiftly running out of options for expanding the force while sticking to the original theme. With the inclusion of allies, this ceases to be an issue. I could expand this force to 1750 for taking to blog wars 5 (I'm hoping this will happen :-P) or up to 2000, using Guard or vanilla marines and selecting units that are similar to their Halo equivalent. All these projects could see themselves increased to full army status.

What do you guys think, will allies be a good or bad thing for the game?

6th Edition Preorders are up

As stated in the title preorders for 6th edition warhammer 40K are now available on the uk website. Just placed my order for the special edition and a set of psychic cards. Can't wait!!

6th Edition More info

The latest 6th edition rumours floating around the internet are as follows:

Hull points: vehicles now have hull points and will be destroyed after losing so many hull points regardless of wrecked or destroyed results. this probably makes landraiders slightly better value for money as they are less likely to be glanced to death by secondary weapons then their rhino counter parts.


Allies are in: With a shiny new chart (this could be the one used for the throne of skulls doubles tournament) indicating the level of co-operation between factions allowing you to take a second FOC from another faction. I'm quite interested in this, as rather then looking at it as a way create an all powerful army of the beardiest possible combination (as well as the fact that with GK being the strongest army, no other army does anything that they can't already do, generally better and for less points), I'm thinking this opens up all sorts of possibilities for theme armies, such as in Ginges previous post. Where the typical wall you hit with these is suitable models and rules to fit in with your theme. This type of system could open up a whole avenue of possible themes. 


Fortifications: Now you can by a fortification slot? hmm, not sure how this would fit in with some armies, I for one can't see my tyranids having much use for a fortress of redemption. Though a spawning pool would be nice

Close combat weapons AP: Pretty self explanatory. I'm glad this is going to be included, as it does represent a large part of the game. I just hope it doesn't widen the power gap between marines and other armies. We shall see though.


All of this should still be taken with a pinch of salt, as it is all completely out of context with the rest of the rules so to look at any potential impact of these statements taken in isolation of the rest of the rules would be fruitless.

What do you guys think?

6th edition release further details

Just been to pick up a storm talon at the local GW, and got handed the card in the picture. Also managed to get a few details on the date shown on the card. Apparently the white dwarf on the 23rd will be selling for £5, which is more then normal, but will contain either a dark angel or (heavily hinted) chaos marine. The store will be running a speed painting competition on these days. With the 6th edition rulebook available to view on this date.
preorders will be taken on this date with orders shipping the following weekend. It was also hinted that the starter box would be available from the weekend following the 23rd.
Exciting times.

6th Edition rumour mill

With Warhammer 40K 6th edition fast approaching the rumour mill is starting to enter full swing, people wondering if they will ever stand a chance against grey knights or if their armies will continue to languish under the might of the space marines. 

Rumours are copied from Imperious Dominatus

From Darnok on Warseer

AP are on ccw but he says power weapons are ap 2, not 3.

Marines are going to be the obvious benefactor of this, most xenos armies are going to take a bit of a pounding, biggest loser here will be genestealers going up against other assault units.

When you charge it's double your move, infantry move 6, bikes 8 cav 7 etc.

What about fleeting units? bikes can normally charge 18" now....

It's move assault then shooting now!

This is going to have a huge impact on the game, Elite squads like Purifiers able to mow down opponents in combat then shot psycannons and storm bolters at another unit, nasty.

Fnp is 5+. Master crafted ccw give you a 5+ invuln save

FNP is a bit of a nerf to Sanguinary priests (who were a bit OP anyway) and Tervigons with catalyst, don't know about master crafted weapons giving a 5++ though?

When you shoot you roll to hit depending on the speed of your target. Fast vehicles you always need a 6.

Fast vehicles just became a lot more valuable then

A unit can't claim a object while inside a vehicle.

Makes sense

There's new kinds of instance death. If your say strengh 8 vs a space marine captain toughness 4

you only do 2 wounds! Strengh (9?) or more would do 3 wounds & kill him.

Or could be an additional wound for every point of strength over the double toughness, This makes the Doom of Malantai much more valuable, if he can survive a krak missile

In kill point missions you get kill points based on what the units points cost, so for example a

landraider would be worth 5 kill points & a unit of marines 3pts.

Why not just go back to victory points, this seems to be for every 50 points or part of, which means a guard squad is worth 1, a guard squad with a meltagun is worth 2. Needlessly complicated.

hat wrote:

I mistyped re: the cover saves. Ruins are 4+, the vast majority of stuff is 5+

Fully expected cover to get worse, makes vemonthropes, KFF, and other cover save generators more valuable

I did not mistype WS1 for moving vehicles, they are not WS10 if they moved - flyers might be different; not sure.

The ability to hit vehicles in combat a bit easier would be good for Tyranids, most other armies rely on shooting

Preferred Enemy change of reroll 1's to wound is in addition to current rules for Preferred Enemy

Templars, Necrons, and tyranids benefit from this one

Flyers are noted in the BRB changing some of the existing vehicles (Summary sheet in the back)

Eldar Flyer, Void Raven and Tau I believe are in the same wave.

A Tau model, N'ah I don't believe it :-P

Darnok just posted these on Warseer:

Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook, £45 wrote:

There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness.

There is only WAR.

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Across airless moons, within the depths of dark, twisted hive worlds and even in the immaterial realm of Warp space, battles rage that will shape the future of the galaxy forever.

It is a universe that you can enter today, if you dare. But remember that this is a dark and terrible era, and there is no peace amongst the stars...

The Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook is your essential guide to playing atmospheric battles in the 41st Millennium. It helps you field majestic armies of Citadel miniatures across the war-ravaged battlefields of the far-future, in the ultimate contest of strategy and skill.

With 440 full-colour pages, this hardback Rulebook is packed with rich background and contains all the rules for fighting pulse-pounding tabletop battles. The Rulebook includes exciting features such as dynamic close-combat, flyers, psychic devastation and interactive scenery. As well as jaw-dropping artwork, contained within is a history of the 41st Millennium and a richly detailed guide to the races and weapons of the far-future. It also features a comprehensive hobby section to set you on the path to choosing, collecting and building your own Warhammer 40,000 army of Citadel miniatures.

Warhammer 40,000: Psychic Powers, £8 wrote:

One of the many exciting features of Warhammer 40,000 is Psychic devastation, where Psykers wreak havoc on the battlefield. Psychic Powers is the complete set of Psychic cards, which be used in conjunction with Psychic Disciplines. They make a great accessory to your tabletop games.

This set contains 35 large-format cards and come stored in a plastic fan-opening case, which bears the Aquila. There are 7 cards for each Psychic Discipline, each of which is represented by distinct artwork. There is also an instruction leaflet that classifies which powers can be used by the main Psykers in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Darnok wrote:

There are also "Munitorum Templates" (£12, designed with a metal effect look), "Munitorum Tape Measure" (£10, looking like a Servoskull) and "Munitorum Dice" (£10, while stocks last).

On advance order on 23th, available from 30th of June.

hat wrote:

More Info (unsure if others have mentioned it however)

Plastic Plaguebearers & Nurglings, Finecast Blue Scribes in August (amongst what Im presuming is that metal daemons will be released with Finecast Versions.)

Finecast will replace all metal models in the next year (unsure if that means specialist)

6th ed - a few morsels

Random Charges are 2D6 pick the highest (unless going through Difficult Terrain where its 3D6 and you drop the highest.) Move through cover I believe adds an extra D6

This is going to hurt assault armies pretty badly, a short run of bad luck could prove extremely crippling with a large portion of the army being stranded in the open failing to reach the enemy. Ouch

Vehicles are WS0 if stationary, and WS1 if they move, no matter how far they go.

Vehicles go the same distance in the movement phase (I believe 6" and fire everything regardless if fast or not) but in the shooting phase can make an extra move (apparently some kept forgetting what vehicles moved to fast to fire...

Vehicles cannot contest (unsure if scoring units in transports can

6 Missions and 3 deployment types (2 of the deployments are the same as current, Spearhead & Pitched Battle.)

Troops are the only ones that can score (including of course 'scoring units')

5+ Cover save for most things including ruins.

Allies rules are in, but its meant to be for team games (ie separate force org chart, distrusted ally rules similar to Fantasy)

Sounds like it could be good for a laugh

Percentages are *not* in

Phew.

Wound Allocation is closest to furthest.

This could take ages to work out, especially if you have 2 slightly staggered units facing each other, would you have to work out each models shots individually....

Dueling is similar to challenges in fantasy but contrary to earlier rumors, they don't replace Combat res, just add to sides. A IC can challenge another IC in the same combat even if not in base to base. If the defending IC refuses, he simply cannot attack that turn, if he does he counts as being in b2b and no one else can hurt him apart from the attacking IC. I'm guessing this is to offset the Wound Allocation rules

Necron lords with mindshackle scarabs would get pretty beastly in combat with this rule. Declare a challenge and watch the enemy IC kill himself, nice

Preferred Enemy is including shooting and you may reroll wound rolls of a 1 (either shooting or combat)

Not for Templars though.. Boo

Rapid Fire weapons may now can shoot at long range while moving. restriction on assaulting after rapid firing remains.

Huge benefit to Grey hunters, not really a nerf to grey knights, but a slight equaliser, makes a foot guard army able to lay down a huge amount of lasgun fire (even flashlights in a big enough quantity can be deadly

Jump Infantry get a free strike at I10 when they charge into combat

Would have thought monstrous creatures would get similar impact hits, as much as I think having an assualt marine land on me would hurt, i think being trampled by a carnifex would hurt more.

Psychic Power Decks using a dice system similar to Fantasy.

Flyers are in.

FNP drops to 5+ Save.

I'm calling it now - Infantryhammer

Kroothawk wrote:

More extensive overview by stickmonkey (maybe you should edit the thread title to "Release schedule rumours"):

Rumored Daemon wave:

Plague bearers (5x box) Plastic. Priced as pink horrors

Furies (5x box) plastic. Priced as de scourges

Blue scribes (finecast)

Herald of nurgle (finecast)

Maybe a little surprise here too...

Plastic GDs are done, rumored to have pieces to build named GD as variants ( though not expected til 2013)

Rumored flyer wave:

De bomber

Eldar fighter

Tau fighter

(go look at relevant thread for details)

Rumored box set contents:

Marines

Chaos

( go look at relevant thread for details)

Rumored next Codex:

Chaos Space Marines

( go look at relevant thread for details)

Rumored July release:

6th Ed hard back

6th Ed special edition

Limited templates, game aids, and what not for 6th edition...

( go look at relevant thread for details)

(...)

(On Deffcoptas)

They are a little bulkier, but not that much bigger. A few pilot options, and some (I think 2) grot hangers on. And some other flavor bits. Like all ork kits you can go to town with making it unique. It's 1 full sprue per Kotpa. To do 3 per box would mean the rhino size box.

6th Edition Teaser Trailer

Gamesworkshop have released a teaser trailer for 6th edition:

From the date shown, I would imagine that this is the preorder date with copies arriving instore or delivered to customers on or around the 7th July.

I can't wait for this, will my hopes for 6th edition be realised or dashed. Will Land raiders finally have a place in my armies again, will my tyranids be able to last for a few turns in combat without losing loads of gaunts to fearless wounds?

Looks like we are going to find out soon enough..