Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Marine, Tyranid, CSM, Necron Rules Thoughts
Goatboy here. The 40K 10th Edition faction breakdowns for the Space Marines, Tyranids, CSM & Necrons are giving me a lot of ideas. Let’s talk.
We got 4 faction discussions this week with Space Marines (Aka Oath is Broken), Tyranids (Stop eating my face!), Chaos Space Marines (Dank Pacts all day), and finally, Necrons (Reanimate this!). Each of the breakdowns was pretty interesting, with tweaks on old rules, updates to how the army plays, and a decent amount of information on the horrors will soon face on the tabletop. I am not sure about everything, but again – until we fight with the dice, we won’t know if it’s too good. Faction rules are where the 40K donuts will get made when playing this game. While the rules are the shell you build off of – the faction rules are where the beatdowns live.
Space Marine Rules
Let’s start with the first one and the poster child for 40K – the Space Marines. It showcases the overall new shift in rules with some simplification of their Doctrine system. It also has some of the bigger bit of rough spots with an earlier reveal of their army rule – Oath of Moment. I do like the ability to choose a doctrine to be active and expect a few things will allow you to get another activation – or force a specific activation for a unit. But having things be a single choice is a very fun set of rules, and I do enjoy how it is pretty simple and useful.
From there, beyond all of that, we got to see Roboutte and how nutty he appears. I do wonder if he has all those attacks or just has to pick a weapon to use – but we’ll have to wait and see. He seems pretty amazing, and I do love his – pick a rule/warlord trait/aura. It gives you a lot of in game flexibility without being over complicated. Beyond that though – who else is excited to put Primaris in new vehicles? Plus, that Land Raider is looking pretty dope!
Tyranid Rules
Next up we have Tyranids which makes sense as they are the “bad” guy in the new Leviathan boxed set. The Synapse rule looks pretty simple and a push towards making Battleshock tests somewhat valid to cause to the army. Sure it will be hard to break them by rolling a 3d6 but you never know. On top of that the whole Shadow in the Warp ability to hit an entire army seems pretty potent – especially when trying to get ahold of objectives or cause a large swath of your opponent to lose their objectives as the shadows cause them to lose their lunch.
I was hoping to see the Swarmlord would get glammed up Primarch style a bit but he seems very powerful and useful. It probably means he isn’t nearly as expensive as other examples of super heroes for the game. The Hyper-Adaptations feels very powerful and allows you to tailor your force based on who you are fighting against. I love these sorts of rules as it allows strong players to “plan” and figure out the game on the fly which can always lead to interesting interactions.
Chaos Marine Rules
Next up with have Chaos Space Marines with a new push towards Dark Pacts and other methods of power increases but at a cost. These are the enemies that step away from the Emperor and I love how they feel power hungry. I hope we see a push towards some interesting Legion style rules in the future as it something I always loved in the game and want to come back to. Just ways to make your spiky marines more unique. Dark Pacts do look cool as they are basically offensive abilities for an army that really only pushes for “offense” instead of caring about protection themselves. Oh and how awesome is it that the Havoc Autocannon is now Damage 3?
The highlight of the little tidbit is of course Abaddon and his amazing set of rules. All three of his Warlord-like Traits are amazing and useful in a game. He creates a whole mini game on his own and I hope we can see him joining a unit of Chosen Terminators to help keep him running around the table top smacking stuff. We’ll have to see again with him if he has 22 attacks or picks between the two weapons. I can’t wait to see the CSM index set of rules and how so many things I loved to do in the game become extra rules on the dataslates.
Necron Rules
Finally we have the Necron faction spotlight and how it updates the army. I am not sure on Reanimation Protocols and I expect a ton of ways to improve/update them in the book. I do like how a lot of the Lords will help the units they join plus how the Monolith seems to be a rough floating jerk of a vehicle. I think we really need to see more of the units themselves, as they have a ton of options that could be unique. I was sad to not see the Silent King as the other armies “big” bads were shown.
We did get to see part of the Void Dragon’s rules but we really want to see their stats, protection buffs, and other fun stuff. There should be a ton of weird powers they on them as they shatter reality. There seems to be a lot of push for keywords on their weapons with tons of Lethal Hits and Devastating Wounds to pass around.
Overall a ton of neat stuff came out this week as we get closer and closer to a pre-order date. How excited are you about the new minis and rules to fight on the tabletop? I have two more 9th events to do so while I am reading stuff I am trying hard to not fully ingest the rules so I won’t get mixed up when I play my last few 9th games. Edition changeovers make my goatbrain hurt.
How excited are you about the four factions revealed so far? Which one is your favorite?
