40K: Top 5 8th Edition Questions We Have Now
Games Workshop has been peeling the layers back to the onion that is 8th Edition – but now we have even more questions!
Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition is shaping up to be a literal game changing edition. GW has talked about the movement, shooting, psychic powers, unit profiles and weapons, charges, the fight phase, and today was the Morale Phase. Last week I had a pretty big list of questions I wanted answers to – a lot of which got answered.
However, there are still some BIG questions that folks are curious about for various reasons. So here’s our condensed list of questions we have about specific things in 8th Edition:
How Will Summoning Work?
This one is kind of a big deal for some very specific armies. Daemon summoning is an issue for a lot of folks in 7th. From what we’ve seen already, Games Workshop isn’t afraid to copy and tweak the rules from Age of Sigmar and port them over to 8th. This has a lot of people wondering what’s going to happen with summoning. Will players have to have a “side-board” of points left over for summoning new units? What about refilling old units?
We saw this come to a head with the release of the Pink/Blue/Brimstone Horrors. Their warscroll has the basic rules, but if you’re playing AoS matched play things can get a little more complex. So how will summoning work in 8th?
How Will Deepstrike Function In 8th?
In AoS, the Stormcast Eternals essentially have a “Deepstrike” ability. It’s not called Deepstrike, but it functions basically the exact same with some caveats. Most of the time, the units don’t scatter at all and must be placed 9″ away from any enemy model/unit.
This has folks wondering if and how those rules will impact Deepstrike. First off, will we see the scatter dice go away? Hey, we don’t have templates anymore and that would be one less roll to slow the game down. Second, Will we be able to just place the unit as part of the ‘Movement” phase? Hey, for things like Drop Pods, you were already so accurate it didn’t really matter that much anyways. And finally, what about assaulting after Deepstriking? If you have to be 9″ away, you still have a decent shot and getting an assault off.
What About Invisibility?
Pictured: Invisible Stalker, Monstrous Compendium, AD&D 2nd Edition
I know I’ve got questions/concerns about the psychic powers – even after the teaser and the Q&A. I use Invisibility as the example here, but I suppose the real question is what about the other psychic disciplines. We know that armies will have access to specific powers, but how will we generate those? Will it be like AoS where a unit has a unique power, access to smite, maybe a few other generic powers, and access to some unique powers from their army?
For example, if I take a Space Marine Librarian at Mastery Level 2, I’m guessing he will have a unique power (let’s say Gate of Infinity – that’s a classic), Smite (as a general power), and say Invisibility as my “Space Marine” power. I’m also going to assume he will be able to attempt 2 casts per turn and maybe even attempt to stop 2 powers as well. Now, in AoS you can only ever attempt the same spell once per turn (most of the time). So what other limits will on Psykers in 8th?
Will Unique Formations Work?
We know from the Q&A that there will be some rather large Force Organization charts and you’ll have lots of options for how you build your army. We also know that those same Force Org charts will impact how many Command Points you will start with. So now I’m curious about how Formations will work in 8th. I’m curious if they will still exist and what’s the cost-benefit for running them?
Using Age of Sigmar as the guide again we know that bringing a Battalion (ie, Formation) has a points cost. This was seen as a good balancing mechanism in AoS so it’s a very real possibility that it would carry over to 8th at this point.
Will We See “Big Unit” Bonuses?
The best example I could think of for the concept I’m referring to is the bonus for running a large pack of Bloodletters in AoS:
These type of bonuses are littered all over AoS and they encourage players to take larger sized units. There are other advantages, which I won’t get into, but these type of special rules are what I’m referring to. Personally, I’d like to see these type of things for horde armies in particular. Mobs of 30 Ork Boyz should get some type of cool bonus just like a huge pack of Hormagaunts. It’s thematic and cool – that should be reflected in the rules, too.
Bonus: What’s The Official Release Date
The White Dwarf has a pretty big clue, but all GW has to do is come out and say “It’s June XX, 2017” – C’mon GW, make it happen!
What BIG question(s) do you have now that we have seen all those teasers from GW for 8th Edition?
