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Very interesting.

Some observations:

Pg 3 - Blast markers now hit if they cover any part of the base. This is a nice boost for Frag Missiles, and Ordnance.

Pg 4 - The term 'model is much more explicitly defined than before. This is a good sign.

Pg 15 - 'Running' works exactly like Fleet of Foot does now.

Pg 16 - They explicitly say you can't shoot a Space Marine's back banner. That's good to have explained since I play with some obtuse players.

"Models are not allowed to fire through the gaps in an intervening unit."

You can shoot over friends if you're on a hill. This is done via the Laser Pointer method to see if the hill is high enough to not clip the heads of a friendly unit ahead of you. You can also shoot through your own unit with no problems. The 'Covering Fire' rule cuts down on some obvious abuses - but this still looks problematic to me.

Pg 18 - BS6+ works by providing a reroll when a one is rolled. e.g. 2/6 2/5 2/4, etc.

Pg 19 - Majority toughness is still used.

Pg 20 - Allocating wounds is model by model. This means all wounds must be rolled individually - not just special/heavy weapons and sergeants. This is because a failed saving throw of a particular trooper could affect line of sight or range of subsequent firing units or knock the unit out of coherency (EDIT: nope, they allow you to remove another model with an identical stat-line (p 23), things aren't as bad as they looked from this page alone). This looks like it could seriously slow the game down.

Pg 21 - Cover is better than before. It ranges from 5+ - 3+ and is generally 1 better than similar cover was in 4th.

Pg 22 - If you're deep in cover in area terrain, your opponent gets a cover save. The way wounds are allocated makes partial cover simple to resolve.

You can elect to be Pinned on your subsequent turn to get a +1 cover save. It's an interesting option.

Pg 23 - They reversed the fluff rationale for heavy weapons' saves - either he was the only one trained or the weapon was damaged.

That's movement and shooting. I'll post general impressions/rumours from other sections as I read them.

More stuff from Warseer: Link

Ok the deployment chart isn't as complex (surprise!) as I thought, so I will try to outline it quickly:

1-2 - Spearhead (table quarters) as usual, except that is seems that the person that won the initial roll deploys their entire force and then the other player deploys theirs. The person who 'won' the initial roll then goes first.

3-4 - Pitched Battle (long table edges) Normal deployment (well 12" from the middle of the table anyway, can't remember the rules from current ed.) Again, winner deploys first, then the other player then the 'winner' goes first.

5-6 Dawn of War (Table Halves) Same as above, except you place 1HQ and 2 Troops (including infiltrators). Everyone else is placed in reserve and comes on in turn 1; and the first turn is night fighting.

Weapons

Pg 27 - Rapid Fire remains 12", not 1/2 range as Tau players want. Blast weapons don't roll to hit - it scatters a d6. The rules for multiple blasts strike me a tad unruly though.

Pg 28 - Gets Hot! is only on a 1.

Multiple templates are done by counting all the hits first, then allocating wounds, etc.

Pg 29 - All Sniper weapons hit on a 2+, wound on a 4+ and are Pinning and Rending.

Rending - 6 to wound automatically causes an AP2 wound regardless of toughness. Against vehicles you add a d3 on a 6 to pen.

The next Chapter is assault.

Asmodai wrote:.

Rending - 6 to wound automatically causes an AP2 wound regardless of toughness. Against vehicles you add a d3 on a 6 to pen.

Interesting. This would mean stealers would get a max of str 13 to affect vehicles. Not enough to affect Land Raiders and Monoliths, but enough to hurt everything else. I wonder if they can only glance with this or if they can pen also.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:More stuff from Warseer: Link

Ok the deployment chart isn't as complex (surprise!) as I thought, so I will try to outline it quickly:

1-2 - Spearhead (table quarters) as usual, except that is seems that the person that won the initial roll deploys their entire force and then the other player deploys theirs. The person who 'won' the initial roll then goes first.

3-4 - Pitched Battle (long table edges) Normal deployment (well 12" from the middle of the table anyway, can't remember the rules from current ed.) Again, winner deploys first, then the other player then the 'winner' goes first.

5-6 Dawn of War (Table Halves) Same as above, except you place 1HQ and 2 Troops (including infiltrators). Everyone else is placed in reserve and comes on in turn 1; and the first turn is night fighting.

This is interesting. I don't know if I like it yet, but it could go a long way towards relieving the issue of "Whoever gets first turn wins" myth that some people judge 40K by.

GG

sebster wrote:
You've changed your argument. People were commenting that 'nids will struggle to knock out AV14 if their glancing venom cannons were nerfed. You replied that the zoan's warp blast was fine. A few of us pointed out that zoan's limitations were considerable... I even recognised they're excellent units but not strong enough to rely on for AT by themselves.

You then changed your assertion, making zoan's part of 'nidzilla list with multiple 'fex and tyrants. Which is considerably different to your original assertion, and nonsensical in a conversation about 'nid AT when venom cannons are no longer effective.

Not changing the argument at all. Simply answering your worry that "A list relying on zoanthropes for AT is likely to punished by any list fielding mutliple armour units." You talk about multiple armor units and not only about the Land Raider and Monolith the other posts were talking about. 3 Zopes are fine vs. a few Land raider or Monoliths and yes the Nid player can not rely on "Zopes only" when facing Multiple armor units (or armies) such as steel legion. Those are two different arguments that I tried to answer together. Zopes vs. armor 14 all around, other nid nasties vs. other armor units.

Asmodai wrote:You can elect to be Pinned on your subsequent turn to get a +1 cover save. It's an interesting option.

This seems powerful to me, for when your squad is below half you won't fall back.

p 31 - You can only assault the unit you shot at.

p 37 - Wounds are allocated like with shooting.

p 38 - The rumours that combat resolution was like in Fantasy don't match up with this draft - it's about the same as 4th ed.

p 42 - Friends falling back can trigger a morale check. This is big for Guard and Tau.

p 43 - You can shoot while falling back.

p 44 - You can bonuses to regrouping checks for being inside area terrain or not being able to see the enemy.

p 46 - Characters with retinues cannot leave them.

p 47 - Characters are treated as a separate unit in close combat. (Note that the new wound allocation does lessen the power of hidden 'Fists, so they've moved up in relative terms).

p 48 - Perils of the Warp is an automatic wound with no armour or cover save allowed - per previous rumours.

p 49 - City Ruins are area terrain. Different heights are measured base to base as usual. You use movement to move up and down and any excess beyond what's needed to move onto a level is wasted and you can't end up between levels.

p 51 - Blasts are fired at a particular level.

p 53 - Monstrous Creatures get Move Through Cover.

p 61 - Vehicles have the 'Relentless' special rule that allows them to fire weapons as if stationary. This clears up the ambiguity about Rapid Fire weapons. (Bikers get this too.)

If you move you can only fire one weapon, except for defensive weapons (S4 or lower). There's no exception for Tau or pintle-weapons.

Line of sight is measured from the weapon's barrel.

Other rumours accurate.

p 70 - Dedicated transports can transport other units later. Yay!

p 72 - Ramming rules for vehicles. Should be fun to do Gorkamorka in the middle of a fight when Orks fight Orks.

p 78 - The 'Eternal Warrior' special rule means immunity to instant death. Remember that Daemon Herald have this special rule and people wondered what it meant.

'Fleet' lets you assault if you run in the movement phase. Great for Gaunts, of mediocre value for Guardians.

p 85 - Missions as just stated. Only non-vehicle Troops count as scoring. This is huge, obviously.

p 87 - Army lists are not secret.

p 89 - There's a mishap table if you deepstrike within 1" of an enemy model.

No mention of Escalation.

Everything here is courtesy of widderslainte, address your kudos to him.

Some concluding remarks.

I certainly have some doubts about a few of the rules (only Troops as scoring, scattering Blast weapons chief among them), but overall it looks fairly solid. The invisible Powerfist has received a bit of a nerf and GW has listened to the fans and defined their terms much better than in the past.

Army selection will certainly be effected. But I don't think it will be quite as broken as people thing. For example Combat Squads are really vulnerable to the new wound allocation rules, so they won't dominate the field with lots of scoring units.

Things I missed: Smoke Launchers give a 5+ cover save, Fast Vehicles have a top speed of 18" now rather than 24" (which makes Star Engines more useful).

Fast Vehicles can fire all their weapons if they move at Combat Speed - Falcons won't be stationary. They can fire one weapon when moving up to 12". A skimmer moving at Cruising Speed or Flat Out (up to 18) gets a 5+ cover save. So a Falcon could move 6" and fire everything, up to 12" and fire one gun but get a cover save, or 18" and not fire anything.

Due to the way models are defined, I think you can fortune a Falcon or Wave Serpent now. I'd need to check my Eldar Codex to be sure.

Asmodai wrote:Weapons

Also, other close combat weapons can no be used with power fists (unless another power fist or equivalent).

No sense crying over spilled milk. It's time to start adjusting my armies.

Let me get this right, Asmodai, units block LOS but just to the enemy. Friendly units can shoot through other friendly units right?

These page numbers will certainly change from the leaked version. They're just a way of organizing stuff and showing the flow (and where I've skipped stuff that hasn't changed much).

I won't be distributing copies. You can check with widderslainte if you want. This is classic GW viral marketing to get people excited about 5th, but I don't want to get into trouble for spreading it. If GW has any trouble with these leaks, I'll delete the posts.

DarthDiggler wrote:No sense crying over spilled milk. It's time to start adjusting my armies.

Let me get this right, Asmodai, units block LOS but just to the enemy. Friendly units can shoot through other friendly units right?

Nope. Friendly units block line of sight too. So if you have a Tactical Squad in front of your Devastators, the Devastators can't fire.

This makes buildings, hills and other high ground extremely important.

widderslainte wrote:

Asmodai wrote:Weapons

Also, other close combat weapons can no be used with power fists (unless another power fist or equivalent).

Thanks. I missed that. I guess it provides a purpose of the Gauntlets of Ultramar and lessens the role of the Powerfist Sergeant even more - he'd have one less attack than he does now.

Asmodai wrote:Due to the way models are defined, I think you can fortune a Falcon or Wave Serpent now. I'd need to check my Eldar Codex to be sure.

"Nominate one Eldar unit with a model within 6" of the Farseer."

Then it works since 'model' means either vehicle or non-vehicle unless specified.

That means that Wave Serpents and Falcons without SMF aren't quite the death traps people feared as long as you have a Farseer to keep them Fortuned (~55% or so chance to ignore each hit).

Basically out of all of that I see a few things that help Tau.

The new vehicle damage chart is good news as long as you can get yourself glanced, because it lets decoy launchers be very effective.
There's a lot more cover saves going on so markerlights will be more useful.
Pathfinders finally get a Scout ability for their obligatory Devilfish.
The replaced LOS screening will allow Crisis Suits to use FWs or Kroot as shields via the jump-shoot-jump-back move.
Freeing up transports to carry anyone is useful. It makes an upgraded D'fish into a useful battletaxi-cum-light fire support unit.
Template weapons have improved a bit.

However there is also a lot of bad.
Less firing of weapons from vehicles.
FW are weak in H2H and will not like all the assault armies getting faster.
Kroot lose their ability to see through more than 6 inches of forest cover.
The allocate saves rule makes shield drones less useful though not entirely useless.
Tau sniper rifles are not Sniper and derive no benefit from that rule.
Piranhas get a lot slower without any benefits.
The new morale rules are going to hurt Ld7 armies.

It is hard to say if the overall effect is up, down or sideways.

I am looking forwards to some assessments about the other factions.

FWIW, it looks like the unfinished draft the Warseer poster was referring to has leaked to the web.

PM me the location please!

Capt K

i would really like to know the location as well, im just about to start a new army and this could change alot of my plans

Asmodai wrote:Then it works since 'model' means either vehicle or non-vehicle unless specified.

That means that Wave Serpents and Falcons without SMF aren't quite the death traps people feared as long as you have a Farseer to keep them Fortuned (~55% or so chance to ignore each hit).

Can you cast psychic powers out of vehicles now? I never understood why a model would be able to shoot out of a vehicle (given a fire point) but not cast a psychic power.

Kilkrazy wrote:The replaced LOS screening will allow Crisis Suits to use FWs or Kroot as shields via the jump-shoot-jump-back move.

The models aren't the same height, so you can be 'seen' over your friends.

Hopefully a nice list of what's "big" and what's "normal" size will appear and define everything for us.

I have my doubts.

Stelek wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The replaced LOS screening will allow Crisis Suits to use FWs or Kroot as shields via the jump-shoot-jump-back move.

The models aren't the same height, so you can be 'seen' over your friends.

Hopefully a nice list of what's "big" and what's "normal" size will appear and define everything for us.

I have my doubts.

I'll convert all my crisis suits to lying down.

CaptKaruthors wrote:

FWIW, it looks like the unfinished draft the Warseer poster was referring to has leaked to the web.

PM me the location please!

I imagine the mods don't want this site to be a hub for trading of copyright infringing materials. What I saw, while interesting, was incomplete and not in a playable state, so I took a look, noted a bit of the rumoured info then deleted it. Try browsing file-sharing websites and the depths of the internet, which is where I saw it. The same sort of places the codex leaks were found. I imagine it will become increasing easy to come by if people on warseer have it.

Now that you can fortune eldar transports, wave serpents will be extremely useful again.

Capt K

As an ork player:
the run rule combo'd with Waaaagh! is insane. Slugga hordes will roll gaily across the battlefield to swamp opponents in hordes of attacks. It also makes warpheads even less useful. (Oh well, it's a nice model)

The changes to power claws are probably a good thing. Yeah it de-powers them slightly, but it makes sense and since they are "must have" and the army no longer sucks, that's a good thing. Maybe Uge Choppas might actually get used in some builds now, who knows?

Screening is going to make terrain placement massively important, and seizing the high ground is going to become like a little sub mission in every other mission. Shooty squads in ruins with improved cover and low morale (lootas, I'm looking at you) are happy campers, almost literally.

The new deployment stuff is actually a fairly elegant solution to the first turn problems this game has had since I started playing it.

We are going to struggle with AV14 tanks if they are used well, as the only reliable S9+ things in the army are warboss and Nob PK attacks and we're getting less of them. Not nessicarily a bad thing, tanks need to be good, and orks do need a weakness. It will be nice to see tanks coming with a little infantry support to keep the tank free of PKs for a turn while they leg it. Monoliths just became that much harder to kill. If the commentators here are right, that makes necrons even more difficult to fight.

Ramshackle actually makes sense now that everyone's transports aren't deathtraps.

All in all, I think the new changes will be pretty okay. As long as there is enough high terrain for shooters to deploy on. I think my club should start working out terrain guidlines for a balanced game now, so that we're ready for the changes. The run rule is unbalanced I reckon, and makes orks broken. But we'll see.

Also, other close combat weapons can no be used with power fists (unless another power fist or equivalent).

now this in very interesting. now I have to remodel my Warboss. the one I just finished....

*looks through Codex...*

forget that, combi-weapons are stupid anyway....

shirou wrote:

Asmodai wrote:Then it works since 'model' means either vehicle or non-vehicle unless specified.

That means that Wave Serpents and Falcons without SMF aren't quite the death traps people feared as long as you have a Farseer to keep them Fortuned (~55% or so chance to ignore each hit).

Can you cast psychic powers out of vehicles now? I never understood why a model would be able to shoot out of a vehicle (given a fire point) but not cast a psychic power.

I didn't see that. I was referring to using the Psychic Power on the vehicle.

It says you use the rules as shooting unless specified otherwise, so I don't see why you couldn't use a Psychic Power as long as the vehicle had a fire point to use it from.

widderslainte wrote:

CaptKaruthors wrote:

FWIW, it looks like the unfinished draft the Warseer poster was referring to has leaked to the web.

PM me the location please!

I imagine the mods don't want this site to be a hub for trading of copyright infringing materials. What I saw, while interesting, was incomplete and not in a playable state, so I took a look, noted a bit of the rumoured info then deleted it. Try browsing file-sharing websites and the depths of the internet, which is where I saw it. The same sort of places the codex leaks were found. I imagine it will become increasing easy to come by if people on warseer have it.

That was my approach. I read it, posted a 'live-blog' of my impressions reading it, and deleted.

It is an interesting moral and legal question whether we should spread the leaked rules further (assuming they are real.)

Copyright fair dealing allows the quotation of rules in order to discuss and criticise them.

GW should perhaps have kept them under better guard, but then again, many companies allow these kind of leaks specifically to do viral type marketing and get uncensored customer feedback.

CaptKaruthors wrote:Now that you can fortune eldar transports, wave serpents will be extremely useful again.

Capt K

What do you mean useful again? The wave serpent has always been useful. Just ask all of the player's who faced it in Vegas.