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I got to thinking about this earlier and it dawned on me that there are quite a few units across several codexes that are going to be extremely happy if the rumored changes to Rapid Fire happen the way they were mentioned. For those that didn't see its basically this:

If you don't move you can fire 2 shots per guy at max range 24''
If you move you can fire 1 shot at 24'' or 2 shots at 12''

Now lets look at units in certain codexes that suddenly just got a lot better:

Chaos Marines- Thousand Sons. So now the AP3 Bolters are going to be firing more rounds and since they are Slow and Purposeful they will have the ability to move and still fire 2 rounds at 24'' per man.
Imperial Guard-The infantry platoons just got even more shots....
Necrons-Warriors just got deadlier by a good stride
Space Marines-Sternguard. Holy god at how powerful the special ammunition just got. Can you say Hellfire Rounds firing 2 shots each at 24'' when they don't move?
Tau-Fire Warriors. So now each Fire Warrior gets 2 shots with his S 5 pulse rifle at 30''.

Not to mention how powerful this makes Plasmaguns. I always liked using them before anyway but I got a feeling that you are going to start seeing a lot more Plasmagunners in the near future across the codexes that can use them.

Um, I'm sure it would be pretty obvious, essentially you double your firepower at 24" and remove some of the inflexibility of your standard Tac Marine style troops.

Note, a mod recently had a suggestion I agreed with, which is that tactics based on speculative news should be kept in the news & rumors section, because this is a rumor, not an actual in-play rulebook.

Sure would make the battlefield extra crappy for my Eldar.............

It's pretty broken to me, but as it particularly helps make Space marines that much closer to their "movie" versions, I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.

Crap never thought about that. How do I go about moving it to that section?


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Not too familiar with the current Eldar codex. Surely they have squads that would benefit from the boost in Rapid Fire?

They don't benefit from firefights with things with a much higher toughness and better armour than them.

I though it just allowed you to make 1 shot at up to 24" if you moved. If this is true though, FRFSRF just became slightly redundant for IG. If we dont move, it lets us shoot 2 shots up to 24", so the order would only help within 12" for a 3rd shot. Unless they decided to faq the order, getting us 3 shots if we don't move up to 24", and 4 per lasgun within in 12" (or just stay at 3) Which would make the IG combined squad (aka blob) one of the scariest infantry units at range ever Although I'm sure we won't see that, that'd be rediculous.

On the other hand, watching a single platoon put out more lasgun shots than most armies have models would be pretty friggin hilarious to watch, even if it'd take half an hour to resolve al the hits

Reivax26 wrote:Crap never thought about that. How do I go about moving it to that section?

I think a mod would have to go about doing that, don't worry about it, if they care then they'll do something.

Anyway, I think this would have some positive effects as far as Fire Warriors and Tac Marines are concerned. I'm somewhat concerned about the buff to Grey Hunters, but the nice thing is that usually Grey Hunters' advantage is in that they don't have to charge due to Counter-attack, but now that Boltguns can be viable up to 24" you could have a single unit of Tacs with a Heavy Weapon be more viable at range. That might make Tacs more balanced compared to Grey Hunters even though Grey Hunters will get a buff.

Plus, Bolters seem to suck right now and the reason they suck seems pretty much because of the inflexibility of Rapid Fire on non-relentless units.

Tac Marines could certainly use the buff. I'm not sure about Sternguard, though, the implications for Sternguard are kind of scary given the strength of some of their ammunition types.

Crisis suits armed with plasma rifles. 6 s6 ap2 shots at 24" and 9 at 12"(or 18" if the pancake rumour is makes it in).
Makes the plas upgrade on broadsides a bit of a no-brainer.

Deathmarks should be pretty happy as well with their synaptic disintegrators getting a boost from rapid fire changes.

Oh, and gauss Immortals

Nitros14 wrote:They don't benefit from firefights with things with a much higher toughness and better armour than them.

Sadly, standard Eldar don't have a single rapid fire weapon in their codex.

I will say this though, if such a change does happen, my necron warriors will be seen as a much more than just "the blob"

Amanax wrote:Sadly, standard Eldar don't have a single rapid fire weapon in their codex.

Not sure if serious.

Oppressor wrote:

Amanax wrote:Sadly, standard Eldar don't have a single rapid fire weapon in their codex.

Not sure if serious.

Tis true, Eldar do not have a single Rapid Fire weapon in their current codex.

Captain Avatar wrote:Crisis suits armed with plasma rifles. 6 s6 ap2 shots at 24" and 9 at 12"(or 18" if the pancake rumour is makes it in).
Makes the plas upgrade on broadsides a bit of a no-brainer.

The problem with the crisis suits is if it counts the assault pack movement for 2 shots, you really don't want to keep those things out in the open.

Broadsides are a bit iffy, as smart missles are still pretty good, and can avoid the cover issues too.

Plasma guns, sternguard, krootox.

For my IG, I will be busting out the plasma gun SWS like no tomorrow. For my DE, I think that raider+lance/warrior+lance may become as powerful or better than venom+cannons/warrior+blaster. For my BA, I may consider taking some sternguard with ML/combi plas to bolster my FNP devs.

Captain Avatar wrote:

Oppressor wrote:

Amanax wrote:Sadly, standard Eldar don't have a single rapid fire weapon in their codex.

Not sure if serious.

Tis true, Eldar do not have a single Rapid Fire weapon in their current codex.

Yup. Pure truth. Right now, it's not that big of a deal, but if the current rumor mill turns out to be correct (Such as any S being able to wound any T combined with improved rapidfire flexibility) it will really put more pressure on the Eldar codex. Wraith units move even further away from being viable...

But, as mentioned previously, other units will gain a much needed boost. Thousand Sons, Fire Warriors, Plasma Guns - all could use a boost. Hopefully, with the rest of the rule changes, (if even these make it) the changes won't be too much of a boost

This just made my DE warriors very happy
On a side note, the changes to Preferred Enemy and Rapid Fire seem to be buffing Tau quite a bit. We might actually see an Ethereal in a list that isn't designed to suck.

Painbiro wrote: This just made my DE warriors very happy
On a side note, the changes to Preferred Enemy and Rapid Fire seem to be buffing Tau quite a bit. We might actually see an Ethereal in a list that isn't designed to suck.

Didn't even think about the idea of a kamakaze Ethereal for the Tau... It's almost too bad you can't take two of them with this change in mind, so those that did fail when the first died could re-roll the leadership save XD

Amanax wrote:
Didn't even think about the idea of a kamakaze Ethereal for the Tau... It's almost too bad you can't take two of them with this change in mind, so those that did fail when the first died could re-roll the leadership save XD

This was the first thing that I thought of 6 months ago when the first rumours of the change to PE appeared.I am going to model on with a kamikazi headband.

Also, you can run an ethereal now in a list that doesn't suck. You stick one in with your Broadsides to make them fearless(just load up on drones and also add your posi-relay commander (w/drones).

As to limiting to only one etheral....??..Wonder if the fact that Aun'vas bodyguards are also Ethereals would kick in the rule multiple times? I mean if ee are gonna be silly then lets not hold back.

Captain Avatar wrote:

Amanax wrote:
Didn't even think about the idea of a kamakaze Ethereal for the Tau... It's almost too bad you can't take two of them with this change in mind, so those that did fail when the first died could re-roll the leadership save XD

This was the first thing that I thought of 6 months ago when the first rumours of the change to PE appeared.I am going to model on with a kamikazi headband.

Also, you can run an ethereal now in a list that doesn't suck. You stick one in with your Broadsides to make them fearless(just load up on drones and also add your posi-relay commander (w/drones).

As to limiting to only one etheral....??..Wonder if the fact that Aun'vas bodyguards are also Ethereals would kick in the rule multiple times? I mean if ee are gonna be silly then lets not hold back.

I like the way you think...

besides, I always wanted a reason to make an army based on the space pope.

Not to mention the fun he could have by slowly ramming his hover chair into the enemy, he could bruise someone first.

The Plasma Command Squad on bikes will sure be putting out a fair bit of firepower , not really buying the rumor tho. With Relentless my bikes would be putting out 12 plasma per command squad and the normal bikers would be putting out 6 shots

Bike armies would finally be able to really make shoot / scoot work out nicely. However with the rule, your also speculating based on how the following rules would interact with it:

Bikes
Relentless
Slow and Purposeful

You don't know how those will change which of course then changes rapid fire weapons application to certain types of units. For example if they included the words "infantry" gain the speculated rule... then bikes, crisis suits, and lots of models are out. Still its fun to play the what if game

Not really, the only thing that Im "specualating on" (besides the fact that it is a rumor to start with) is bikes keeping relentless. The rumor states that relentless will give an additional shot.

Amanax wrote:

Captain Avatar wrote:

Oppressor wrote:

Amanax wrote:Sadly, standard Eldar don't have a single rapid fire weapon in their codex.

Not sure if serious.

Tis true, Eldar do not have a single Rapid Fire weapon in their current codex.

Yup. Pure truth. Right now, it's not that big of a deal, but if the current rumor mill turns out to be correct (Such as any S being able to wound any T combined with improved rapidfire flexibility) it will really put more pressure on the Eldar codex. Wraith units move even further away from being viable...

But, as mentioned previously, other units will gain a much needed boost. Thousand Sons, Fire Warriors, Plasma Guns - all could use a boost. Hopefully, with the rest of the rule changes, (if even these make it) the changes won't be too much of a boost

Wow, I honestly did not know that! I always thought that shuriken catapults or whatever the basic weapon for non storm guardian squads was rapid fire. Guess we need more Eldar players in the area.

The land raider crusader and the Iron Clads just became nastier too (as did bikes). I've also seen a rumor that relentless adds an extra shot to Rapid Fire (that just made the afore mentioned units even nastier... and chaos terminators too).

Imagine, if you will, a blob of 30 Guardsmen. Now picture them getting FRFSRF and shooting 81 shots at 24" range. That's goddamn terrifying, while also making Tac Marines more useful as opposed to just being the unit you take as tax for taking cooler stuff.

Rapid fire could do with a boost.
30 guardsmen at 24" would be 60 shots, 30 hit, 10 wound, 3.3 dead MEQ.
Hm,that's actually pretty potent. It'd be nice to kill marines with something other than special weapons though.

AegisGrimm wrote:Sure would make the battlefield extra crappy for my Eldar.............

It's pretty broken to me, but as it particularly helps make Space marines that much closer to their "movie" versions, I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.

Its important to remember that your looking at one (rumored) rule and not the rest of the ruleset. What if all fast skimmers become much harder to hit with weapons, resulting in Eldar Wave Serpents becoming even harder to kill? Then suddenly the expensive price tag on the serpent becomes a bit easier of a pill of swallow.

In summary, you can't just look at one rule and say "It would make the battlefield extra crappy for my (insert army here)" We just don't know, and until we see the entire ruleset, we will not know.


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MrMoustaffa wrote:On the other hand, watching a single platoon put out more lasgun shots than most armies have models would be pretty friggin hilarious to watch, even if it'd take half an hour to resolve al the hits

Currently a LG has a 1/20 chance of killing a marine. 30 guys at 3 shots each is still only 3.5 marines dead. It's nice, but nothing to write home about.
Now -- PGs are another story. Suddenly the 4 PGs you have in that blob are throwing out 8 STR 7 AP2 shots at 24", plus your 4 LCs, for a total of 12 AP2 shots. Now that's some scary sh**.

Brother SRM wrote:Imagine, if you will, a blob of 30 Guardsmen. Now picture them getting FRFSRF and shooting 81 shots at 24" range. That's goddamn terrifying, while also making Tac Marines more useful as opposed to just being the unit you take as tax for taking cooler stuff.

Yep. The proposed rule would make blob squads very powerful and Plasmaguns much more useful. 2 plasma shots at 24" would rock! My 5-man Black Templar Crusader squads with a plasmagun and a lascannon just got much more useful!

Brother SRM wrote:Imagine, if you will, a blob of 30 Guardsmen. Now picture them getting FRFSRF and shooting 81 shots at 24" range. That's goddamn terrifying, while also making Tac Marines more useful as opposed to just being the unit you take as tax for taking cooler stuff.

What it would do is help out the foot-based armies.

This weekend I ran 61 SW infantry in a 1500 point game. That army does OK currently, with some very bad matchups (Dark Eldar can be terrifying if you can't crack those transports). I had 2 squads with 2 PGs and 2 squads with PG/MG.
This change to rapid fire would make their potency much greater. Suddenly the PG squads are throwing out 4 STR 7 shots at 24" and 2 krak missiles.