40K FAQ: Imperial Armour Astartes Tweaks
A few changes, clarifications, and armaments for all those fancy Forge World models you’ve been waiting to use.
Following closely on the heels of the general FAQs for 8th edition come the Forge World FAQs. The first two are out now, for the Adeptus Astartes and Chaos. Today we’re taking a look at the FAQs for the Adeptus Astartes and seeing what the takeaways are. Mostly it’s a few clarifications–but there are a few important things to find here. For instance, did you know that you can now actually take a Cyclone Missile Launcher and use it? Well you can! It has stats and points (50) and everything.
via Games Workshop
First things first, a few of the errata. Most of the ones you’ll find in the FAQ are corrections/clarifications to help things read easier/make sense. But the more important ones to be aware of are the omissions. For instance, you might have been reading up on your Relic Land Raider Proteus and been wondering what your heavy armor actually does–after all it’s an ability you can take that’s missing from the entry (and the rest of the book).
There you go, in black and white. Give your 2+ Land Raider a 5+ save, so that even when getting blasted with Melta weapons you’re still better at saving than most of the other vehicles in the game. Plus you also have a Proteus, which is pretty cool. Shoot some Lascannon or a Hunter-Killer missile on top of everything else.
Then there’s the omitted Cyclone Missile Launcher–which both varieties of Mortis Dreadnoughts can take.
So go ahead and add that to their potential toolbelt. And if you’re worried about having to flip back to your Imperial Index 1 like some kind of peasant, never fear–the Cyclone Missile Launcher has helpfully been errata’d back in to this particular Index. Nobody needs to know you ever thought about picking up a model/book that wasn’t from Forge World when you’re hanging out at the country club.
This one’s a fairly big change to the Rapier Carrier. Sure it still has to have the Gunners within 3″ of it in order to fire–but they’re not trapped by the Rapier. They can advance with it, they can move independently. If something’s sneaking up on them, they can either run away or engage as needed. Shoot those bolt pistols with a little more aplomb and make your enemies try to dance around to get close to your crazy stealth-ified gunners. After all, they can only be chosen as a target in the shooting phase if they’re the closest unit–screen them behind some other dudes and you’ve got an invincible duo armed with bolt pistols and grenades.
One last important clarification–again, this is one of those complex interactions that come when units have the ability to mix and match keywords. It’s helpful to have answers like these set up–and I guess it provides a mechanical differentiation for the various chapters, but it does feel like a little additional wrinkle that doesn’t add more than restriction to the game. Still, it’s nice to see the fluff and the rules playing nicer with each other.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more FAQs as they drop!
