40K BREAKING: Characters in 8th
They lead your armies on the tabletop – but how will Characters work in 8th? Games Workshop’s latest preview teases Characters!
We’ve gotten a look at Large Models and Infantry already. Today, GW pulls the covers off of Characters to showcase what these key elements will do in your army.
via Warhammer Community
“So here’s a big thing – Characters can’t join units anymore. The age of the <add prefix>-star is over.”
“To counter the fact that these Characters cannot join units and “hide” from enemy fire, there is a rule in the Shooting phase that means you can’t target a Character unless they are the closest enemy model. This represents the difficulty in picking out individuals amidst the maelstrom of battle and applies to all Characters with a Wounds characteristic of 10 or less, including things that previously might not have benefited from any protection.”
I want to pause right there – this is a pretty major change! The bell tolls for the age of the Death-star and the only “protection” characters are going to get is that they can only be shot if they are the closest model. So what are the benefits?
“…you’ll tend to find that a lot of Characters will have an ability that affects nearby units with a certain Keyword within a radius of effect.
[Heroic Intervention] allows Characters near a combat to pile in and attack if the enemy comes close enough, even if they themselves aren’t charged…”
The examples listed are things like Drazhar who lets all friendly Incubi units within 6″ add 1 to their “to hit” rolls. Or the Kroot Shaper who will allow “to-wound” re-rolls of 1 to friendly Kroot nearby. These rules are sounding very similar to how characters function in Age of Sigmar – which isn’t a bad thing in my book.
Read the full rundown HERE
Couple these changes with the “protection” mentioned above and characters strike a good balance. They aren’t untouchable, but they aren’t easy to pick-off either. Plus you’ll want to keep them in the thick of the fight to units to share their buffs with as many units as possible – and lets not discount that Heroic Intervention. I don’t think there is a unit out there that wouldn’t like a little back-up from a near-by character.
The Big Changes:
- No more [prefix]-Stars
- No more “hiding” in units
- Buffs based on keywords
- “Protection” vs shooting
- Heroic Intervention allows a pile-in for characters near a combat
It really does sound like these changes are going to impact the game in new and exciting ways. Thematic armies are getting a bump and that’s fine by me!
What do you think of the changes to characters? Are you happy or sad to see Death-stars go the way of the Dodo bird?
