Warhammer 40K: The Fallen Rules Spotted
The Fallen Rules from the new White Dwarf have spotted, and they have some people scratching their heads.
The new White Dwarf contains a big article about The Fallen. White Dwarf 464 seen below has a cover teasing an “Index Hereticus: The Fallen”. Right away that sounds like the Chaos version of the long-form Index Astartes articles we have seen lately on the Exorcists and the like. The past articles have been exemplary and included not only lavish background, but rules as well, normally in the form of Chapter Tactics, Warlord Traits, and Relics. Occasionally, you might see a named character.
About the Fallen. First of all we haven’t seen the Fallen show up in a bit. They got no love in Psychic Awakening and got a one-page Specialist Detachment (Fallen Angels) in Vigilus, where they played a small if key role in the campaign. Does anyone remember this set of fun from 8th Edition and 2019?
If you don’t know who they are, let’s just say that there is a reason the Dark Angels and all their successor chapters are known as the “Unforgiven” – and the Fallen are a big part of that.
Now, if you were expecting this to be a massive lore drop from GW you’re not wrong. But this Index Hereticus is so much more than that. GW said this was coming:
“You can also look forward to rules for a Fallen Angels Specialist Detachment, enabling you to field a bespoke formation of these enigmatic black-armoured renegades, and providing them with Stratagems and even a Relic too.”
The Rules Reality
The lore in the article is 8 pages with all kinds of background details. The promised Specialist Detachment however has folks wondering what is up. Here it is, spotted on Facebook, B&C and miniwars.eu. People with the White Dwarf in hand report no datasheets.
What that is is the exact rules from Vigilus Ablaze, worked up in the new style 9th Edition visual format. Compare these with the 2019 page above.
- The Specialist Detachment has the same rules and restrictions and costs 1CP.
- Cypher does the same thing.
- Relic is identical.
- Stragatems are unchanged. (There is the new 9th Edition clarification of what family of Strategems both are – Battel Tactic Stratagems).
While the lore, and artwork is always appreciated, the rules are a bit of a letdown compared to the great new ground covered by recent Index Astartes that brought chapters like The Exorcists to life.
But – The Fallen do now officially have a set of 9th Ed rules.
I’ll guess we’ll have to wait for a future codex for our dream of full rules.
