40K: It’s A FAQstravaganza – Big Changes To Basic Rules
Alongside the errata and Beta Rules introduced in the Big FAQ 2, the Core Rules of the game have some stealthy changes introduced in this round of FAQs. Changes to targeting and weapon selection and the Fly Keyword abound.
It’s basically Patch Day for 40K right now. Right down to spending two hours downloading a new patch from the server and trying to get up to make a sandwich while your computer is doing the download. Only in this case, the computer IS YOUR BRAIN AND YOU’RE DOWNLOADING IT BY READING.
You just got Mind Freaked
The Big FAQ 2 is the fancy shiny news, but there are a lot of subtler but still important changes introduced in version 1.3 of the game. These are nitty and gritty, so let’s get down to it. In this article, we’re focusing on the changes to the Core Rules of the game–but there are 18 new FAQs all in all. Every Army has got some changes or updates, even if they’re smaller ones.
via Games Workshop
Moving
The way Flying Models work has changed significantly. Units with Fly no longer ignore vertical distance, but rather just move across models and terrain as though the board were empty and flat. This is a subtle change, but it does mean that you can’t be 3 inches away from an enemy vertically (but basically adjacent horizontally) and make a charge of 0″ and still be stuck in close combat.
Targeting
This one is a very small change but one that clarifies the order of operations for ‘targeting a unit’ in both Shooting and Close Combat. Now, when you decide what you’re targeting, you also declare what you’re shooting/stabbing with at the same time. So you can’t try and bait out your opponent’s Lightning-Fast Reactions or other defensive stratagems, then decide that you’re going to shoot that unit with your bolters and target your missile weapons at a more vulnerable unit, for instance.
Stratagems (again)
Stratagems saw some major changes in the Big FAQ–but that’s not the end of the changes to them. In the Core Rules they now spell out that Stratagems with identical names but from different Codexes (Veterans of the Long War I’m looking at you), they count as the same stratagem.
And Stratagems that let a unit Shoot/Fight out of turn still have to play by the rules. For instance, a unit shooting because of Auspex Scan or Forewarned still can’t target Characters with less than 10 wounds unless they’re the closest unit, despite shooting in the enemy’s movement phase. Which is how we imagine most of you have been playing it, but it’s nice to see that codified.
Organized Play Rules
Finally some changes to Organized Play clarify that you can still take up to 9 Leman Russes or Carnifexes in a 2,000 point game, as long as you buy them in Units of 3. And the Daemon Princes from the various Codexes do count as different models, meaning you can flood your Chaos Armies with Daemon Princes if you want, though that would get real expensive real fast.
At any rate, as we’ve mentioned, there are changes to 18 different Codexes, so check out the updates to your army today
What changes hit you the hardest? Let us know in the comments!
