40K: 8th Edition – Large and In Charge
Large models are going to be pretty beefy in 8th, come take a look!
Today’s 8th edition update is all about bringing out the big guns. And big fists and swords and, well, really just any kind of big…ness. We’re talking Large Models here.
via Warhammer Community
So, as we know, gone are the days of vehicle armor, glancing hits, penetrating hits, and so on. All models have the same stats at their core now, as we’ve seen from previous unit profile pics. It’s just a matter of variation that separates the units–they’re all working from the same page. Everything’s got wounds and toughness, everything’s got an armo(u)r save.
…some armo(u)r works better than others, though, as seen here.
What does this mean for the bigger models in the game? Well, for one, it means that (if you believe GW) “gone are the days of a lucky first-turn meltagun blowing up your Land Raider.” Here now, are the days of a lucky squad of first-turn meltaguns blowing up your Land Raider. Although I imagine even that will be pretty rare.
If you wanna take out some monstrous creature or massive battle platform, it’s going to take actual effort now. As GW puts it:
You’ll soon see that some of Warhammer 40,000’s biggest hitters have A LOT of Wounds, high Toughness and a good save. The biggest Tyranid monsters now have over a dozen wounds, where Imperial Knights have over 20!
This makes them almost infinitely survivable against small arms fire, but means that high-power weapons that can take chunks of wounds off at a time (lascannons, powerfists, battle cannons, etc) can take them down relatively quickly when brought to bear in force.
This can make big models very powerful, but there is a counter mechanic in the rules. As these large, powerful models take damage, their combat effectiveness starts to degrade.
This last part seems especially important. So let’s take a look at one of their big models: the Morkanaut.
First of all, that thing is toughness 8 with 18 wounds and a 3 up armo(u)r save. That is a beating on a stick–but you’ll notice that there are a few values that are marked with an asterisk. That’s because they change as it takes damage.
In the Morkanaut’s case, as it takes more wounds, it loses both movement, weapon skill, and attacks–basically making it less mobile and assaulty, and more of a shooty heavy target as it takes damage. But you have to deal out a fair amount of damage to really degrade its effectiveness. Even when it’s at half health to just below, it’s still capable of wrecking shop (especially compared to a Tau Pathfinder).
Anyway, I like this mechanic of big things degrading as they get shot at. When I look at this statline I can picture a Morkanaut going off on a rampage then slowly getting shot apart as its armo(u)r, limbs, and weapons get shot off.
I dunno if it’s the most balanced way to do big things–it’ll definitely make them a target of concentrated fire, but how much can they endure?
Read the full Large Models Update here
What do you think? Is this new life for big models, vehicles, monstrous creatures, etc.? Or does this mean you’d never take them because they get worse as they get shot?
