Warhammer 40K: Working on Your Core
Adam, here to once again discuss the latest rules to hit 9th Edition – the CORE Keyword and what it means for the game.
Well, it seems like Games Workshop just likes giving us new information as the new edition rolls along. Within this past week there is a lot of new information for us to process. We are seeing a lot of rules that will have a big impact on the way we play the game. Some changes seem like they aren’t that big of a deal, while other changes seem, at first glance, to have long lasting effects. This week we will look at two of the big changes that Games Workshop has discussed that will be part of the new codexes that will be out in October. Why they didn’t just put them in the core rules, i don’t know but that’s another discussion. The two things we will talk about are the changes to auras and the new “core” keyword.
Maybe not so much…
Aura Abilities
First some context before we talk about the change. During late seventh edition and for all of eighth edition a character’s aura affected both the unit within the radius of the character and the character itself. This is why things like Smash Captains are everywhere, because they could buff themselves. Games Workshop even gave us a fluff reason as to why this was allowed. This also caused some players to play in a “castle” configuration on the tabletop because all the hard hitting units would bunch up around the character with the powerful aura. In eighth edition this was fine because you really didn’t have to move your units too much as you could score points by killing things and then you could score the rest of your points after everything on the table was dead.
The new came that is coming doesn’t allow characters to buff themselves. Most characters have pretty good stats to begin with so the added buff is not really needed. Again, Games Workshop gave us a fluff reason as to why they would receive the buffs they give out. With the addition of the new rule in the next section, we may see less use of the “castle” or even less usage of single model characters that would rampage through an opposing army *cough* smash captains *cough*. This may also cause an increase in other unit types that could greatly benefit from a more mobile character, especially since the current missions reward movement more than killing units. I can only see this new restriction to auras as a good thing, although I know it will take some getting used to at first.
Welcome to the new era of auras.
Core Keyword
Some new that Games Workshop introduced is the concept of Core Units. What’s funny is that it immediately made me think of some of the older editions of Warhammer Fantasy when you had to have a certain percentage of core units in your army but I digress. So far, Games Workshop has given us a general idea of what units will have the Core keyword. What they showed us was not a definitive list but a sample. If you looked at the list it covers units that are not troop choices at all. This may be confusing at first but may become clear as more codexes are released. Games Workshop mentioned that even vehicles could be core units so it really seems up in the air as what could qualify as it may depend on the army itself. The benefit of the Core keyword, for now, seems to be that these units will be able to benefit from certain auras that only affect units with the keyword. This is important because there have been many army builds that are built around certain auras.
With this new restriction you may see some units used less often while units which may not have been used in a while will see more play on the tabletop. I don’t think that we can really build armies just based on what was teased but seeing some of the units that gain the keyword I, myself, am already thinking of army builds that focus on some of the units they have shown us so far. Overall I think that the combination of the core keyword and new aura restriction is good for the game. I can see army builds that take advantage of both, combined with the new GT missions, as a way to once again turn the meta on its head, although this seems to be happening every few weeks at this point. I am excited to see what new builds come out in tournaments after these new codexes drop.
~That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and what other units you think will get the core keyword, in the comment s section below.
