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40K: 8th Q&A Part Deux

5 Minute Read
May 18 2017
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Missed the second 8th Edition Q&A? We got you covered.

Games Workshop hosted another Q&A session for 8th Edition today. We were tuned in an taking notes for all those who missed it. Enjoy!

What is a Primaris Space Marine?

  • New generation of Space Marine
  • Bigger, more powerful
  • More focused in role
  • “Very very *specific*” – in regards to battlefield role
  • other types in the future, still specialized

Indomitus Crusade

  • What Guiliman has been up to
  • Banded together parts of the Imperium
  • Created new Primaris Marines
  • New founding of Primaris Marines
    • Ultima Founding – Entire Chapters of JUST Primaris Marines
    • All marines gifted with Primaris Tech
  • Not all test tube babies, can be made from recruits
  • Existing Marines can be upgraded to Primaris
  • *Andy seems Really excited to play with different stories about how flesh turners will feel about Primaris Marines
    • Will they accept them
    • Will they want to work with them
    • Will they want to be “upgraded” to a Primaris Marine…
  • Primaris Marines – Add them as you like to your existing army

What is Mk. X and what about Mk. IX?

  • New class of armor, not just for one troop type (alluded to different abilities)
  • What happened to IX–who knows? It’s a mystery!

Indomitus Crusade part 2 – This time it’s personal

  • Guilliman travels to give Primaris Marine tech to all Loyalist Chapters
  • Fighting vs Chaos
  • War on all fronts, including Xenos threats
  • He’s trying to help where he can – but the Galaxy is kind of on fire

Creating the New Rules

  • How long has it taken to develop 8th? At least 18 months – probably longer
  • Lots of testing, lots of background changes
  • Improving Three Ways to Play
    • Specialized more for each
    • take feedback and improve each version of 3 ways to play–match play, narrative, and open
  • Continue to playtest the rules
  • update rules for match play, narrative, and open

Army competitiveness/parity at competitive level?

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  • Lots of playtesting and future playtesting
  • Not afraid to make changes in the future
  • And react to feedback “quickly”

FAQ/Feedback Sites

  • There working on ways to get feed back in the future
  • Currently it’s just Facebook/events/in person
  • Later they will have a new “forum-esq” site

How many Imperium know about Guilliman’s Return?

  • Not many regular Imperial Joes know about him.
  • Think about it – Not everyone knows about a Space Marine!
  • If one shows up on your planet? It’s not good.
  • Who knows about Guilliman? Upper echelons of Military Orders, High Lords, Chapter Masters etc…that’s about it

Primaris Marines — All From Mars?

  • Primaris Marines – 1st Batch is from Mars
  • Eventually all Chapters will be able to make their own – Guilliman is gifting the tech to chapters so they can create their own

Melee vs Combat?

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  • CC is much more devastating
  • Surrounded units CAN’T Fall Back
  • Units are A LOT quicker?
  • Sweeping advance – consolidate from one combat to the next
  • Combat happens twice per game turn vs shooting’s once per game turn

How will “Initiative weapons” work?

  • Lash Whips – Combat Interrupt – not the only weapon, but it’s an example
  • Power Fists will be -1 to hit! But if it hits, it hits hard.
  • Unwieldy could be minus to hit (implied – not confirmed)
  • Other levers than initative to pull
  • Basically, if a weapon had a rule that impacted the way it worked on the initiative step, GW has tweaked those weapons via other modifiers besides “initiative”

Selecting Psychic Power – Pick them or roll?

  • Match play – you can choose or roll
  • Open / Narrative play – optional
  • You get to CHOOSE: Random or pick

Perils of the Warp – Still a threat?

  • Yes – but no major details

Choosing Armies

  • Force Org. detachment for pretty much every army. Even an army entirely made of Elites – there is probably a force org chart for that…

How will you tailor your army?

  • More access to command points, stratagems, army specific rules
  • You tailor based on Keywords (more below)

Specific Army Rules (examples) – this one was unscripted so it’s very general concepts

  • Imperial Fist – Better vs. Defending/fortifications
  • White Scars – Hit and Run

Battle Forge Army Each Unit/Detachment must share one keyword, Examples:

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  • Imperium – limited stratagems to just generic “Imperium”
  • Space Marine – Gain access to Space Marine Stratagems on top of Imperium Stratagems
  • <Chapter> – Specific Chapter Strategems on top of the others
  • The more specific the key word the “deeper” you can go with the Stratagems

Characters in Transports

  • Based on transport capacity, not number of units
  • Characters can hitch a ride with a unit
  • You could fit 2×5 man units in 10 (something) transports
  • If a transport has a capacity of 12, you could fit a 10 man squad + 2 other characters for a total of 12

Command Squads have rules to help protect characters

  • Tyrant Guard example
  • Command Squad example
  • Lookout, Sir! type rules

Rule *Drop Pod*

  • 9″ Away from enemies
  • Units deploying from the Drop Pod at least 9″ away from enemy

New vs Old weapon changes

  • Weapons have been rebalanced
  • Grav shouldn’t be the “Auto-include” that it is now

Combos for Competitive Play?

  • Yes, with Keyword Mechanic it’s still a thing
  • Combine Keyword combos and Psychic Powers – competitive players can still build power lists

Exploding weapons without templates?

  • They still hit pretty hard
  • Battle Cannons seemed to work just fine for Pete

Invulnerable Saves

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  • Work pretty much the same
  • Saves are an “instead of” roll vs an “in addition too”

Power from Pain happens *after* damage roll

  • Come back on a 6
  • You still take the damage, so it’s a lot like an additional save

Large Creatures – Will they get to smash?

  • Yes! Good save, Bit faster, and smashy
  • Large Creatures will work!

Wound allocation

  • Defenders choice
  • No longer directional
  • Defending player chooses where the wounds go

Can I play an entire army of Dreadnoughts?

  • Yes

Legion Strength – Will The Codex get redacted/replaced?

  • Well, “the chap who wrote it is back” –and it did not go well in 10,000 years, so we’ll find out!

Primaris Marines and Chaos influence

  • They’ve been designed to resist, but we’ll wait and see…

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Tactical vs Primaris Marines

  • You should take both – they serve different roles
  • Tactical marines are more flexible, Primaris Marines are there for specific battlefield roles
  • You’ll see this repeated thought the Primaris types vs “regular” Space Marine roles

Psychic Powers

  • Mix of old and new. “The intention of those powers” will be kept for new and old powers
  • Example: Mindwar – it’s a classic power, but it might be tweaked slightly for new edition

How will you collect feedback?

  • Now – Facebook, events, Twitch
  • Later – Working on a New Site  for feedback
  • Forum-ish site with upvotes/downvotes

GW and Tournaments

  • Yes , working with and talking with them. Giving advice and more interaction with T. O.

[email protected]

  • Email them questions!

Terminators, will they feel like Terminators on the battlefield?

  • Yes.

Does Pete thin his paints?

  • Yes.

On a scale of 1 to Kharne, how excited are you for 8th?

  • Angron Excited!

Will you continue playtesting 8th after the release?

  • Yes, even after the release.

More Primaches?

  • Possibly…mentioned a “cowardly(?)” one. edit: Apparently Pete said “cowled” – who could that possibly be…

 

Well that’s all we got from the Live Stream Q&A – That’s a lot to digest!

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Author: Adam Harrison
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