Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Let’s Talk About Those 5 Army Rules Reveals
Goatboy here and I’m super excited about last week’s 5 army rules showcases for 10th edition. Here’s the parts that mattered.
In fact – 2 of them have me so stoked for new rules that I don’t know how I can contain myself and keep the memory of 9th in my head for the Kansas City GW event. I will struggle I’m sure but that’s alright. Because I know a new batch of rules will be right around the corner and I can leave 9th edition behind – forever!
Let’s go over my quick thoughts about the releases this week from GW. I won’t go in the order they were shown because obviously two of them I am much more excited about. Beyond the army showcase we did get to see some new Tyranid stuff that has something I am slightly worried about depending on how 10th rolls out with shooting and a units’ ability to target. Heck, why beat around the bush let’s just talk about it.
Barbgaunts & Neurocytes
The new Barbgaunts look pretty cool but have a few set of rules that can be very scary to deal with. Their weapon isn’t nearly as deadly as you would want it to be but I am guessing you don’t care if they do damage or not. The issue at hand is of course the Disruption Bombardment and how there is no limitation to how many “units” you shoot at and can affect. If the unit is 5 or so models that means you could have it shoot 5 targets and then all of them are disrupted. Of course, the entire rules are not shown to us so we don’t know for sure how this all works out – but still, it seems pretty dang scary to “lock” a ton of your army down and disrupt them with your gross grubs.
The Neurocytes are another unique little unit in how they can “spread” out the Synapse like some kind of gross mental sickness over the battlefield. We’ll have to see if this is needed depending on how many Synapse options you get in the new Tyranid focused 40k universe. I get the feeling that unless these guys are very cheap or they give some other kind of fun rule like allowing some leaders to join or protect your big nasty brain bug – they might not be worth it. Still – they look pretty cool!
Lots of Armies!
Enough of the Tyranid rules nonsense let’s talk about the 5 different armies shown this past week. We had Astra Militarum, Sisters of Battle, Votann, Chaos Daemons, and World Eaters. You have two shooty armies, two assault armies, and then those that bring the Faith to the masses. Overall all of the little releases were pretty interesting, and while I am not a fan of three of them they all seem like they could be pretty good. Will have to see their points and indexes to really see everything fleshed out.
Astra Militarum
First up with the AM side of things, with the “humans” of the universe dying for the Emperor. Overall they seem pretty good with a lot of what they have now repeated for the army at hand. It feels pretty similar with a slight nerf to Borne Soldiers (A rule that just shouldn’t be around nearly as much but I digress) with having to stand still to get it. I wonder if will see some Strats that will allow you to count as standing still or maybe GW knew not to put that in there. The orders look pretty much the same, and there is a nice little bit of info that if you are battle shocked you can’t be ordered. We’ll see how many battle shock options we have in the game and how we can basically make the army not function (looking at you Tyranids).
They brought back big ole blobs of Guardsmen too. While it is cool I do wonder, with this game seeming to push MSU we might not see such big units. Blast is looking pretty rough for those 20-man blobs (adding a +4 to hits). Especially when you see some of the armies that have units of 5+ blast weapons. The poor Lascannon still looks weird with its d6+1 damage profile when something like a 2d3 or 3+d3 might just be better for it. I do like the regrow strat to as summoning bodies could be really good to all of a sudden show up on a backfield objective. We still haven’t seen a Relic or Warlord trait yet, so who knows if they will have some kind of flag that makes Chaos stuff sad.
Leagues of Votann
From there, we got Votann which is another super short shooty army. It feels like they paid for their original rough set of rules that caused GW to blink when they first came out. It appears they went to have a BS of 4+ army wide with Judgement tokens allowing you to get a +1 to hit for those deemed unworthy. This feels pretty rough when you compare it to the old traits. But again, I think having less of those rough auto-wounding options the better as GW seems to want you to care about toughness. They also seem to be one of the few armies with a much more robust CP regen option based on what they kill. This could be very powerful especially with Overwatch looking strong, as well as whatever Strats they have. Being able to burn CP without caring about saving it seems pretty powerful. A lot of their weapons saw an AP nerf too. So will have to wait and see if the Index showcases more of what GW wants these guys to be. There is a ton of Sustained hits which replaces a lot of the old Beam rule with just more hits on the unit they target which seems ok. We’ll just have to see how many stunties we get on the table when the points come out.
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Adepta Sororitas
The Sisters of Battle are next, and it appears they have kept their Faith rules intact – with just the issue of rolling 1’s and 2’s less exciting in this new age of trying to beat your leadership. This might end up being a greater balance factor in the game as so many armies had different ways to burn dice, rerolls, and other fun things. If no one really needs 1’s and 2’s it ends up being a chance to have those games where nothing rolls high and you are left holding a bunch of bunk miracles on the tabletop. Their Detachment rule of Blood of Martyrs seems interesting if the game continues to not be nearly as deadly as before. With so much of their army having 1 wound it probably doesn’t help them nearly as much but we’ll see. The Triumph, though looks pretty awesome with its cool set of rules and other abilities. I am really liking the “choice” for your trait/power options for special characters, and this is one of the cooler ones. I wish we saw the Silent King with the Necrons but I get the feeling he might have taken a hit for his old crimes against the tabletop. Oh and of course their Strat allows them to shoot back at you after you shoot them. If the game is less assault and more shooting thing this will be a rough one to face down with an Overwatch option on top.
World Eaters
Next up we have my two favorite armies we have seen so far in that I just finished one of each of them. We’ll start with the newest one on the block – the World Eaters. My favorite World Eater Horton is so excited for the new rules and 10th edition. I am too as their new “blood tithe” like ability sounds awesome and very usable. Sure, it has the random factor we all can groan about, but the ability to roll it at the start of a Battle Round and having it be active until the next Battle round is just awesome. It allows you a chance to respond to what your opponent is throwing at you. If you know you are going first you can go aggressive with fast movement and other options. If you know you need to survive damage coming at you make sure to power up with Feel No Pain if you roll the dice. Heck, even the Khorne Berzerkers are looking pretty good with their Icon helping give you a reroll a Dice on the Blessing of Khorne if you control an objective with an Icon’d unit. Angron himself looks pretty mean still, with some choice rules and neat abilities. I don’t know if summoning him back will be worth it. But it is something to really think about when you are going Second and you watch your leader eat it from some ranged weapons. I also like the Strat that lets you control the objective when you cover it in your blood. That seems very fluffy and fun.
Chaos Daemons
Finally we have the army I am very excited about – the Chaos Daemons. This army is always a weird thing as it is this ultra-pressure-based army that likes assault but it isn’t always about assault. I really hope we see God Specific Detachments in the book with cool powers and other fun stuff. They didn’t say anything about a Warp Storm-like table and instead have moved into some kind of Shadow of Chaos idea. Anything in your deployment zone is in the Shadow of Chaos and if you control more objectives you gain more Shadow over the field. The shadow helps your Battle Shock tests as well as letting you get some Wounds back if you pass those tests. Of course, they hurt your opponent’s tests as well so it seems like a really sweet set of rules to help out. Also, the Shadows help you deep strike closer, which seems like a pretty rough thing to set up. This makes you also look at that redeploy strat to allow your army to jump in a turn, and you get very close with all your chaotic nonsense.
Beyond that, they also showed how other Chaos armies can get some Daemons in their army too, which is a nice thing to see. Daemons can add a lot of interesting fodder to your armies that might not have chances at interesting units. I am hoping we see Chaos Knights soon to see how they could use some Daemonic help with their most likely tough-as-heck butts that sit on the tabletop.
We saw the new Malefic weapon option with just the Extra Weapons attacks on Daemons. These are the extra weird things like sword arms, chains, and other gross bits that hang off of the monster at hand. This is pretty good as these MC’s look to have lost some wounds. Luckily we got to see Be’Lakor and a Keeper of Secrets which both look good. I wonder if Bel’s rule of allowing your Daemons to not be targeted might end up being too strong. I don’t know, as I am aggressive player, so I will get within 18 inches to put pressure on any player I throw down against. We saw Skarbrands attacks as well which seems good too. We’ll see if it he ends up being less basic in the new edition.
The Final thing is the Strat as it allows you to still hold an objective. This is perfect for those fast Daemon options we know they have a ton of in the game. You could grab that objective, zoom over to another, and then bring most of the field into the Shadows of Chaos.
I Want 10th Edition NOW!
Overall it is a bunch of exciting stuff and I can’t wait to see more armies showcased in the coming weeks. It is a fun time as we get ready to upend our game, relook at our collections, and hopefully drool over a new starter box sitting in our pile of plastic shame.
~Which of these armies has your favorite rules so far?
