Just for fun: lets guess Chapter abilities

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**Xenomancers**

Thadin wrote:
One less Chapter ability to guess. Ultramarines got their Chapter tactic revealed today.

+1 Ld, can shoot after falling back with -1 to hit.

I like that more than the rerolling everything ever of their X Doctrines.

Guilliman does all that now.

**Lobokai**

@Purifier. Lol. Got 1 right. Curious if I'll be close on others.

**Xenomancers**

I am an ultra marines player but I've always had a soft spot for the raven guard. I'll be really interested to see their chapter tactics.

Considering we know what the ultra marines have it will probably come with 2 benefits.

Heres my raven guard guess. Ravenguard units that are in cover are -1 to hit and add +1 to their advance and charge moves.

**Sgt_Smudge**

Gamgee wrote:
Kel'Shan Sept:

Jewel of the Earth Caste: When creating an army with Kel'Shan keyword your commanders/vehicles/battlesuits may purchase an additional piece of gear from the signature systems, wargear, or vehicle equipment. Kel'Shan Sept armies may purchae each additional signature system beyond the normal limit of one per army up to one additional time for each entry.

Advanced Protoytpe: Kel'shan Sept armies may purchase an additional elite unit in detachment they take.

Fear the Xenos: When fighting any xenos race they gain +1 morale when fighting xenos armies and reroll 1's to hit.

Siege Breaker Assault: Kel'shan are infamous for loving close combat assaults to break sieges with high tech close ranged combat. You may spend two command points to roll two dice for all attacks a unit makes and discard the lowest dice.

Mistrust the Auxiliary: May not purchase any auxiliary units.

Elite Forces: One less troop slot in detachments is available to you.

I'd really hope this isn't what it would look like.

The "Elite Forces" and "Mistrust the Auxiliary" are hardly negatives at all. You can quite easily make a build that plays to the strengths of the list without needing either of these. Make a Vanguard detachment, so you don't need Troops anyway, and Auxiliary units get no buffs from the rules of this Sept anyway. Hence, neither is really a loss to this army.

By xenos, would that mean things like other Tau? Why are they better at fighting Tau over Guardsmen? Or, if you mean Xenos (as in, anything not Tau), then that's just a massive bonus all the time.

Siege Breaker Assault is a no-brainer. Lets go through it:
A Command Point would allow you to reroll one single die. If that's worse than the first, then you're stuck with the second.
The Siege Breaker Assault, for double the price, allows EVERY dice to be "re-rolled" (so, nearly always more than 2) and you always get the best of the two rolls. It's not a tactical decision to use that over a Command Point. So long as you have the Command Points to do it, you'd never settle with just the standard re-rolls on attacks - hence, a non-decision.

**Arandmoor**

Dakka Wolf wrote:
Arandmoor wrote:
Instead of "Chapter Abilities", I'd like to see "Chapter Disadvantages".

Specific chapters should not simply make a chapter "vanilla marines, BUT BETTER!!!!!"

...and yes, I'm specifically looking at Blood Angles, Dark Angles, Space Wolves, etc...

Chapter codicies should be zero sum. You should be forced to give up something for every advantage you get, and it should be something you feel when you play.

When you play Blood Angels, you should be thinking to yourself "Because I'm BA, I can do this, and it makes my army awesome!". But you should also be thinking to yourself, "Man, if I wasn't BA, I could do that instead."

We already have that, usually it's in available units.
Space Wolves have all the furry fury but don't have access to the Flying Potatoes, don't have access to Grav or Heavy Weapons in Troops choices, don't have access to various bits and bobs and there are times, usually halfway through a list build you'll think I wish I'd never picked this army!!!

Chapter Abilities for the most part are so situational they're often irrelevant.

Counter-attack +1 attack when you're charged, tell me that matters against Guard, Tau or Eldar when you're running about with S10 hammers and their whole gameplan is to stay the hell away from you and keep shooting.
Accute Senses lets you re-roll the table edge deployment results when outflanking, until Curse of the Wulfen gave SWs the Deathwolves FOC the only way to get Outflank on the Wolves was lucking out on Warlord Traits with the Wolves Unleashed detachment.

Except in almost every single instance of this, the units they do not have access to are units you wouldn't normally want to run anyway, given the general strengths of the army. This makes them disadvantages in name only.

I think Steve Jackson and Hero games put it best: A disadvantage that does not disadvantage you is worth zero points.

Limiting a chapter army list by removing their access to units they wouldn't be able to properly support anyway isn't worth anything because it's not a disadvantage.

An actual disadvantage would be something like saying that Space Wolves tend to prefer less sophisticated but more brutal weapons for close-in combat and completely remove their access to normal power weapons. Then re-jigger their army to average a CC strength of 5 with multiple wounds almost across the board, but almost completely bar them from close combat AP values better than -1, with many going from ap 0 to even ap +1 or +2 vs vehicles.

As fearsome as a gigantic battle-axe looks in the hands of a genetically enhanced 7-foot-tall giant super-soldier, it's going to be pretty piss poor at cutting through modern armor designed to hold up against weapons that atomize matter at the touch and literally shake things apart at the molecular level. Hell, giving them +1 to ap values vs vehicles wouldn't be out of the question either as vehicle armor is specifically designed to stand up to high-velocity ballistic impacts, the physics of which put said large-surfaced axe-strikes to shame.

However, if you could get past the armor plating, you'd really, really be able to do some damage...

Against vehicles, with say 20-30 attacks, you'd be looking at around 1-2 wounds dealing multiple damage each. Compared to a tac squad hiding a power fist, that's not too good, but its something you can work with so you're not totally helpless.

However, take that same squad against a large non-vehicle target like a carnifex, where suddenly their AP values aren't being penalized for using their chapter-specific weapons, and suddenly you're in business until they get tarpitted by a 1 wound swarm, and their multi-damage attacks start to hurt them again.

You should love your army up until you hate it. These non-disadvantaged chapter lists make playing vanilla marines, or any chapter that didn't get their own codex, frustrating to play because without a strong disadvantage that actually makes a different in play it punishes you for not picking them over a more well supported army.

What frustrates me most is that it doesn't need to be like this. They simply need to make the disadvantages more distinct and less lazy.

**Lobokai**

Well, for an ability that UM had years ago and that is way more widely given than it was then, there seems to be a lot of freaking out. Must be short memories or new players.

**BrianDavion**

Lobukia wrote:
Well, for an ability that UM had years ago and that is way more widely given than it was then, there seems to be a lot of freaking out. Must be short memories or new players.

it's something new for space marines, and ultramarines in specific, people are freaking out because of that. nevermind that I garentee you the other chapter tactics will have stuff that is MUCH MUCH better in a given situation.

**SilverAlien**

Gonna guess Iron Hands get either a 6+ invulnerable save across the board, like mechanicus does, or the 6+ FNP equivalent. If the former, they probably get another benefit as I don't see the invulnerable saves stacking and it'd be totally irrelevant for a number of units.

**BrianDavion**

SilverAlien wrote:
Gonna guess Iron Hands get either a 6+ invulnerable save across the board, like mechanicus does, or the 6+ FNP equivalent. If the former, they probably get another benefit as I don't see the invulnerable saves stacking and it'd be totally irrelevant for a number of units.

"Resliant: each time this model loses a wound roll a d6 on a roll of 6 it does not lose this wound" basicly a lesser version of the death guard trait

**verticalgain**

Dark Angels: Add the Keyword <CHAOS> to all units with the <DARK ANGELS> Keyword. Do not tell your opponent.

**Matt.Kingsley**

I imagine something like these for the following:

Blood Angels:
All Blood Angels models with this tactic add 1 to their Strength characteristic in the Fight phase of a turn in which they charged.
In addition, Blood Angels units with this tactic and the Jump Pack keyword may re-roll their Charge rolls.

Dark Angels:
All Dark Angels models with this tactic add 1 to their Leadership characteristic.
In addition, Dark Angels models with this tactic hit on 5s and 6s when firing Overwatch, rather than just 6s.

White Scars:
All White Scars models with this tactic add 1 to their Attacks characteristic in the Fight phase of a turn in which they charged.
In addition, White Scars units with this tactic that do not have the Terminator or Centurion keywords can still charge in a turn in which they Fall Back.

Black Templars:
All Black Templar models with this tactic add 1 to their Attack and Strength characteristic the the Fight phase of a turn in which they charged or in which a model from their unit was slain.
In addition, Black Templar units with this tactic can Consolidate up to 6", rather than 3".

**CthuluIsSpy**

Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I imagine something like these for the following:

Blood Angels:
All Blood Angels models with this tactic add 1 to their Strength characteristic in the Fight phase of a turn in which they charged.
In addition, Blood Angels units with this tactic and the Jump Pack keyword may re-roll their Charge rolls.

Dark Angels:
All Dark Angels models with this tactic add 1 to their Leadership characteristic.
In addition, Dark Angels models with this tactic hit on 5s and 6s when firing Overwatch, rather than just 6s.

White Scars:
All White Scars models with this tactic add 1 to their Attacks characteristic in the Fight phase of a turn in which they charged.
In addition, White Scars units with this tactic that do not have the Terminator or Centurion keywords can still charge in a turn in which they Fall Back.

Black Templars:
All Black Templar models with this tactic add 1 to their Attack and Strength characteristic the the Fight phase of a turn in which they charged or in which a model from their unit was slain.
In addition, Black Templar units with this tactic can Consolidate up to 6", rather than 3".

Actually, I think for the Black Templar Chapter Tactic they might bring back that rule that gives them a free D6 move whenever they take a casualty.
That was an iconic ability of theirs, and made getting into combat easier.

**CaptainValtos**

For iron hands I feel like vehicles could get something similar to power of the machine spirit for one weapon each shooting phase, kinda reflecting the benifits they got from the fist of Medusa strikeforce force. For the other infantry I hope it's not a 6+ fnp, because while that did make them more resilient, it was a bit boring gameplay wise. What if they received +1 to toughness while the unit is within 6" of a vehicle?

**Dakka Wolf**

Selym wrote:
What I would like:

Spoiler:

Imperial Fists: May select three pieces of terrain. If any IF unit takes cover from it, it is a +2 to armour, instead of +1. Cannot be modified to be better than a 2+ save.

Black Templars: Add 3" to charge rolls.

Salamanders: Something to buff flamers and/or meltas.

What I wouldn't be surprised to see:

Spoiler:

Ultramarines: These guys are tactical geniuses and gods of war, so they get to re-roll to sieze, they get to put however many units they want into reserves, they all re-roll 1's to hit, and everyone gets scout and infiltrate.

Everyone Else: A token consideration to remind you that you should have painted your marines blue.

Exalted.
Well played Sir.

**Gibs55**

Iron Hands

Iron Hand characters repair one additional wound when repairing a vehicle (non flyers only)

Vehicles (non flyers) with 6" of a Techmarine or your Warlord do not suffer a penalty to hit when shooting heavy weapons after moving.

**Dakka Wolf**

Arandmoor wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Arandmoor wrote:
Instead of "Chapter Abilities", I'd like to see "Chapter Disadvantages".

Specific chapters should not simply make a chapter "vanilla marines, BUT BETTER!!!!!"

...and yes, I'm specifically looking at Blood Angles, Dark Angles, Space Wolves, etc...

Chapter codicies should be zero sum. You should be forced to give up something for every advantage you get, and it should be something you feel when you play.

When you play Blood Angels, you should be thinking to yourself "Because I'm BA, I can do this, and it makes my army awesome!". But you should also be thinking to yourself, "Man, if I wasn't BA, I could do that instead."

We already have that, usually it's in available units.
Space Wolves have all the furry fury but don't have access to the Flying Potatoes, don't have access to Grav or Heavy Weapons in Troops choices, don't have access to various bits and bobs and there are times, usually halfway through a list build you'll think I wish I'd never picked this army!!!

Chapter Abilities for the most part are so situational they're often irrelevant.

Counter-attack +1 attack when you're charged, tell me that matters against Guard, Tau or Eldar when you're running about with S10 hammers and their whole gameplan is to stay the hell away from you and keep shooting.
Accute Senses lets you re-roll the table edge deployment results when outflanking, until Curse of the Wulfen gave SWs the Deathwolves FOC the only way to get Outflank on the Wolves was lucking out on Warlord Traits with the Wolves Unleashed detachment.

Except in almost every single instance of this, the units they do not have access to are units you wouldn't normally want to run anyway, given the general strengths of the army. This makes them disadvantages in name only.

I think Steve Jackson and Hero games put it best: A disadvantage that does not disadvantage you is worth zero points.

Limiting a chapter army list by removing their access to units they wouldn't be able to properly support anyway isn't worth anything because it's not a disadvantage.

An actual disadvantage would be something like saying that Space Wolves tend to prefer less sophisticated but more brutal weapons for close-in combat and completely remove their access to normal power weapons. Then re-jigger their army to average a CC strength of 5 with multiple wounds almost across the board, but almost completely bar them from close combat AP values better than -1, with many going from ap 0 to even ap +1 or +2 vs vehicles.

As fearsome as a gigantic battle-axe looks in the hands of a genetically enhanced 7-foot-tall giant super-soldier, it's going to be pretty piss poor at cutting through modern armor designed to hold up against weapons that atomize matter at the touch and literally shake things apart at the molecular level. Hell, giving them +1 to ap values vs vehicles wouldn't be out of the question either as vehicle armor is specifically designed to stand up to high-velocity ballistic impacts, the physics of which put said large-surfaced axe-strikes to shame.

However, if you could get past the armor plating, you'd really, really be able to do some damage...

Against vehicles, with say 20-30 attacks, you'd be looking at around 1-2 wounds dealing multiple damage each. Compared to a tac squad hiding a power fist, that's not too good, but its something you can work with so you're not totally helpless.

However, take that same squad against a large non-vehicle target like a carnifex, where suddenly their AP values aren't being penalized for using their chapter-specific weapons, and suddenly you're in business until they get tarpitted by a 1 wound swarm, and their multi-damage attacks start to hurt them again.

You should love your army up until you hate it. These non-disadvantaged chapter lists make playing vanilla marines, or any chapter that didn't get their own codex, frustrating to play because without a strong disadvantage that actually makes a different in play it punishes you for not picking them over a more well supported army.

What frustrates me most is that it doesn't need to be like this. They simply need to make the disadvantages more distinct and less lazy.

Did you not read my reply? We already have those exchanges and they don't take much effort to find and no way of supporting them is mostly bullgak.
7th.
*Grav didn't need support.
*Gladius and Skyhammer WAS support.
*Centurions only needed transportation that we could get.
*Thunderfire Cannons need a tarpit to keep enemy units away.
*Bike troops don't need support.
*Land Speeder Storm? Nah, our Scouts weren't worth taking anyway.
*Scouts worth taking would have been nice though.
*Heavy Weapons on troops choices would be nice.
*Stormhawk Interceptors, less than 150ppm for a flying fighter is amazing.

In exchange we got brutal melee gear, although in 7th that was a laughable tradeoff.
Space Wolves' "primitive" melee weaponry like Frost weapons are better than Power weapons even though we cough up extra for them and the Wolf Claw are better than Lightning Claws for the same price. Our melee gear is better than and access to melee gear is better than most of what the Imperium has to offer and in exchange the Wolves have limited access to newer Space Marine weapons, especially ranged weapons.

In 8th these differences hardly matter because taking a mixed army is even easier than it was in 7th - it's just harder to glue them together in the psychic phase.

**BrianDavion**

I expect chapter tactics, relics stratiguiums etc will be what dischourages "Fraken lists"

**Malifice**

Not enough Crimson Fists in this thread.

Chapter tactics (Crimson Fists):

Bolter drill: A model with the Crimson Fists keyword may use their normal BS when firing 'Bolter' weapons on overwatch instead of hitting on a 6+.

Tenacious: Every time an infantry model with the Crimson Fists keyword is removed from play, roll a die. On a 6, that model may fire a single weapon before being removed from play.

**Kroem**

Some flavourful ones for the Silver Skulls could be as follows;

Portents of Victory: Units with the Silver Skulls keyword add 1 to their leadership when within 6" of a Librarian, but take an additional casualty if they fail a morale test using this increased leadership.
This would simulate the additional self belief given by the augurs of the Chapter Prognosticators.

Head takers: Players earn an additional victory point for 'Slay the Warlord' if the enemy warlord is killed by an HQ choice with the Silver Skulls keyword.
This would simulate the enemy warlord being beheaded and his skull being taken as a trophy.

**Arandmoor**

Frozocrone wrote:
UM: Probably the doctrines again
IF: devastators re roll to hit against vehicles (similar to tankbustas). Boltguns get +1 strength
WS: Bike troops (aside characters), can charge after falling back
RG: +2 when in cover, Jump Pack units become troops (aside characters)
IH: +1 Toughness, +1 bravery
Salamanders: Heavy Flamer as a heavy weapon option, re reroll to wound with flamers and meltas

Some of those are obviously unbalanced. I don't expect them to be balanced against one another. It's hard to make RG and Salamanders fluffy and yet balanced against the others IMO.

Well, if we take the ultramarines rule as a baseline, then straight up +1 toughness is obviously OP. However, not by much. Meanwhile something like "devastators do X" is probably too limited since not every Imperial Fists army will take Devastators.

IF: Reroll wound rolls of 1 vs vehicles.
WS: Bike troops can charge in a turn where they issued a fallback move, but attack at -1 WS.
RG: Reduce the BS of any unit shooting at a RG squad that arrived from reserve this turn by 1.
IH: Ignore any unsaved wound on a 6+ (bionics).
Salamanders: Reroll wound rolls of 1 or 2 when shooting with flamers or attacking with power weapons (mastercrafting).

Though, I don't agree with IF. They're masters of siege warfare. Not tank hunting.

Imperial Fists: Reroll hit rolls of 1 when in cover or area terrain in any turn this squad did not advance. This includes rolls of 2 if a Commander is within 6". Additionally, Imperial Fist techmarines can repair fortifications as well as vehicles (I'm assuming they can't already do this. I don't have my books with me at work).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kroem wrote:

Head takers: Players earn an additional victory point for 'Slay the Warlord' if the enemy warlord is killed by an HQ choice with the Silver Skulls keyword.
This would simulate the enemy warlord being beheaded and his skull being taken as a trophy.

That would be bonkers OP.

I'd say something more like...

Head takers: All Space Marines units with the Silver Skulls chapter keyword automatically pass moral checks until the end of their next turn whenever they kill an enemy character with a Silver Skulls character.

**Desubot**

Man coming off the Raven guard one..... maybe Imp fist will just get reroll ALL bolter shots instead of just 1s.

Im hoping for MAXIMUM DAMAGE strat for devs.

**CaptainValtos**

Maybe for Imp fists would ignore the -1 to hit with heavy weapons?

**Desubot**

CaptainValtos wrote:
Maybe for Imp fists would ignore the -1 to hit with heavy weapons?

Yeah honestly i have no idea what they are going to do and it excites me.

im probably hyping my self for sadness but 2/2 so far are fantastic.

**Selym**

nvm, I'm an idiot

**SilverAlien**

I'd just like to say, as someone running plague marines a decent amount, toughness 5 isn't that amazing and could be within the realms of a chapter tactic. It tends to be rather swingy, if the enemy is running lots of strength 3 or 6/7 (so lots of lasguns, plasma, or autocannons) it's literally nothing. If they run lots of strength 4/5 (so bolter and heavy bolters, plus tau stuff) it's fairly great, but even then not -1 to hit rolls good.

**Desubot**

SilverAlien wrote:
I'd just like to say, as someone running plague marines a decent amount, toughness 5 isn't that amazing and could be within the realms of a chapter tactic. It tends to be rather swingy, if the enemy is running lots of strength 3 or 6/7 (so lots of lasguns, plasma, or autocannons) it's literally nothing. If they run lots of strength 4/5 (so bolter and heavy bolters, plus tau stuff) it's fairly great, but even then not -1 to hit rolls good.

Its certainly absolute hell when you are running just a bunch of bolters. and plauge marines also get fnp.

on the bright side the -1 to hit at least has counter play in that you have to get within 12 to ignore it.

**fox-light713**

Raven guard

**Selym**

fox-light713 wrote:
Raven guard

Time for the Path of the Fist, I guess.

Spoiler:

**Purifier**

If we give Lobukia half a point for "a stealth mechanic of some sort" (a bit generous, maybe) then he's 2.5 out of 3 for his guesses so far, with the white scars reveal today.

**Desubot**

Desubot wrote:
CaptainValtos wrote:
Maybe for Imp fists would ignore the -1 to hit with heavy weapons?

Yeah honestly i have no idea what they are going to do and it excites me.

im probably hyping my self for sadness but 2/2 so far are fantastic.

Imperial fists get ignore cover and reroll vs buildings

Cool factor meh
practical 1000%

dont know how to feel about it.