Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 Roknar wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:
I really like the new Dark Apostle - even though the whole mechanic of "He knows prayer X and one prayer of the dark gods, the same prayer can only be chanted once per battle round regardless of how many Apostles your army contains" feels very similar to psychic powers - that can't be denied.

Not necessarily bad, but I don't get why they have a chance to fail in the first place. In the grim future where there is only war, Dark Apostles often suffer from bouts of sudden voicecracks?

The Khorne-chant seems very odd (read: bad) however. When is +2 Str a better pick than +3 A +3 AP? Meh.

Maybe there is a way of getting an extra prayer off, if only once or so?
Even then, the prayer that makes it easier to wound is pretty much the same functionally and applies to everybody so...uh...dunno

Good point, that makes even less sense.
+2 Str on self is never a better choice than +1 to wound on self (or on a friendly unit within 6".)
At best it does the same thing but with restrictions. At worst it does nothing.

"But if you already have that prayer on a different Apostle?"
Then pick something else...

The only way I could see it is if you have the possibility of an extra prayer and you get the extra attack + strength AND another apostle buffs that guy with easier wounds.
So.....never lol. Wait, no not even then. At that point a sorcerer would be better to add + strength AND an attack instead of another apostle.

I can't even think of a hypothetical situation were it would be useful.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I'm very annoyed by the rotor cannon thingy being pretty much as strong as 3 heavy bolter. WHY GW WHY? Between that and the Kellermorph pistols, stats power creep…

 warboss wrote:
think I'm just personally expecting too much from a supposedly mainstream wide age range targeted product debuting expensive brand new figures. I just keep hoping that just one of these main GW campaign ends up more like one of the (good) FW campaign books.

The problem with GW campaigns is that unlike Forge World, who understands right that 40k is a setting, one in which there are thousands of different chapters, regiments, and all. So Forge World creates bespoke characters and factions for their stories, work up to make us care for them, and give us a real ending that doesn't have to go back to the status quo. GW is really dumb (or really good at giving people what they want and most 40k fans have terrible ideas, idk) and think of 40k as a story (it's not, or at least not a good one) rather than a setting. So they take already established factions (easier, you don't have to work to make us care for them), existing characters (thousands of thousands of world but everyone is always the same, gakky smallworld stuff) and have to go back to the status quo. With extra added “story advancement” where they force those same smallworld stupid characters to make stuff that have galaxy-wide effects, which is anathema to the settings.
Bad GW!

Indeed. What they refuse to admit is that not every character model needs to be in the codex to be considered as "supported". A simple PDF with fair and flavorful statting (not just a pump and dump to get it out the door to check off a box) is all that it needs. No art, no fancy new fluff... just the rules. And with that they could sell the model and use the character in a self contained meaningful way if they wanted to. Instead, we get plastic kits for everyone that need to last for 10 years on average so they can't negatively affect the character in any way... only buff (as with PriMarneus Calgar).

We shouldn't even need special rules for most characters!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I'm very annoyed by the rotor cannon thingy being pretty much as strong as 3 heavy bolter. WHY GW WHY? Between that and the Kellermorph pistols, stats power creep…

 warboss wrote:
think I'm just personally expecting too much from a supposedly mainstream wide age range targeted product debuting expensive brand new figures. I just keep hoping that just one of these main GW campaign ends up more like one of the (good) FW campaign books.

The problem with GW campaigns is that unlike Forge World, who understands right that 40k is a setting, one in which there are thousands of different chapters, regiments, and all. So Forge World creates bespoke characters and factions for their stories, work up to make us care for them, and give us a real ending that doesn't have to go back to the status quo. GW is really dumb (or really good at giving people what they want and most 40k fans have terrible ideas, idk) and think of 40k as a story (it's not, or at least not a good one) rather than a setting. So they take already established factions (easier, you don't have to work to make us care for them), existing characters (thousands of thousands of world but everyone is always the same, gakky smallworld stuff) and have to go back to the status quo. With extra added “story advancement” where they force those same smallworld stupid characters to make stuff that have galaxy-wide effects, which is anathema to the settings.
Bad GW!

Right, its a massive philosophical difference in story telling. GW wants to cram as many characters (with models) and factions (with new expensive models) into every single story possible because a decent percentage of GW gamers love when they’re favorite faction is mentioned. It has almost nothing to do with crafting a coherent story as I think most of us understand that it makes no damn sense that EVERYONE is always on a single planet, lol.

FW campaign books are the gold standard and one of the few places where 40k lore is still taken seriously.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
We shouldn't even need special rules for most characters!

I wouldn't go that far myself. People whined when FW introduced a special character (iirc a dark angel chaplain in IA3 Taros?) and people whined there was nothing special about him (or a model iirc). Special rules sell models and I'm ok with that as long as they're fair and balanced properly. What we don't need is every single character to be alive in the setting at the exact timeframe that the setting is currently in. Maybe I had a very forgiving group of players in 3rd edition but no one ever complained that Macharius was in an IG army because he died in the fluff centuries earlier or later that someone had the temerity to use Sergeant Culln or Lysander centuries to a millenium after they were captains or a chapter master (or maybe even a dreadnought now).

 warboss wrote:
People whined when FW introduced a special character (iirc a dark angel chaplain in IA3 Taros?) and people whined there was nothing special about him (or a model iirc).

Don't introduce “special characters”. Introduce characters.
“Hey it's this guy, he is a space marine captain, he has this personality and have this adventure. Since he is a space marine captain you can use the space marine captain to represent him, or better, use the space marine rules to represent the cool character that you got the idea from through immersion on the settings via all those characters (that can be represented with the standard ruleset) we introduced earlier”

I remember when playing special characters required asking specific permission from the opponent.

I remember when playing special characters required asking specific permission from the opponent.

Which was always such a bad rule. Playing 40k also requires your opponents permission, as they can simply not play.

Can anyone confirm if any of he reboxed items (Rhino, Helturkey, Bikes) went up in price?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 warboss wrote:
People whined when FW introduced a special character (iirc a dark angel chaplain in IA3 Taros?) and people whined there was nothing special about him (or a model iirc).

Don't introduce “special characters”. Introduce characters.
“Hey it's this guy, he is a space marine captain, he has this personality and have this adventure. Since he is a space marine captain you can use the space marine captain to represent him, or better, use the space marine rules to represent the cool character that you got the idea from through immersion on the settings via all those characters (that can be represented with the standard ruleset) we introduced earlier”

I remember when playing special characters required asking specific permission from the opponent.

I might be expecting to much from GW but you're definitely expecting too much from the playerbase, lol.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 warboss wrote:
People whined when FW introduced a special character (iirc a dark angel chaplain in IA3 Taros?) and people whined there was nothing special about him (or a model iirc).

Don't introduce “special characters”. Introduce characters.
“Hey it's this guy, he is a space marine captain, he has this personality and have this adventure. Since he is a space marine captain you can use the space marine captain to represent him, or better, use the space marine rules to represent the cool character that you got the idea from through immersion on the settings via all those characters (that can be represented with the standard ruleset) we introduced earlier”

I remember when playing special characters required asking specific permission from the opponent.

Yep. always liked this much better than having every army led by some special characters

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Can anyone confirm if any of he reboxed items (Rhino, Helturkey, Bikes) went up in price?

Looking at the United States GW New Releases page right now, none of those units have gone up in price.

Edit: Just noticed that the forge/mauler fiend in only 8 bucks more expensive than the new Chaos Space Marines. Yikes.

 Kirasu wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 krakjen wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
i think the writers didnt do their research on what a Gloriana Class starship is...

Spoiler:

- Sure enough, the plan worked, with the Imperial Navy's remaining ships trying to open up a path for the Aeldari (there's a funny little bit here about how they dragged so many ships for this attack away from other planets that the Necrons, etc just took them) and the Eldar managed to ram the Vengeful spirit, ripping a whopping great big hole in it. The ship is very nearly dead, but manages to pull off an emergency warp translation (and therefore will probably be fixed up and fine by the time the writers need it as a plot device), but this hands naval superiority/equality at least back to the Imperium.

I know GW has to fit as many copywritten units/weapons into a story as possible, ut a deathstrike missile is a battlefield weapon, not a naval weapon and an Eldar ship is incredibly tiny. The Vengeful Spirit is something like ELEVEN miles long!

They also forget that those ships are equipped with powerful voidshields.

BFG rules: Ramming damage is not deflected by shields.

Any damage inflicted in BFG has a chance to cause critical hits, and some of those critical hits can inflict additional damage. Bulkhead Collapse for example inflicts an additiona +D6 damage. For comparison, an Emperor class battleship has 12 Damage points and losing half cripples a ship in BFG.

So can imagine the ram inflicting at least 1 point of damage, then a critical hit for 6 Damage. 7 total Damage at least. Unlikely? Yes, but not impossible. A Gloriana class might have more than 12 Damage points but even so, such a massive hit would be likely to lead to withdrawal, rather than risk its crippling or loss.

In what way does BFG rules have anything to do with this? These games rarely reflect the fluff, however, a book CAN reflect the fluff accurately but GW is writing saturday morning cartoons lately. You don't seem like you know what a Gloriana class ship is either with the statement of "It might have".. It's orders of magnitudes more powerful and durable than any other ship ever constructed (Thats why only less than 2 dozen were ever constructed). One eldar ship isn't going to blow "huge holes" in it.. Again, deathstrike missiles are battlefield weapons and are a complete and utter joke in a void war.

But the fluff has been a disaster since the Ward Era anyway, unless you love G.I Joe style writing.

BFG is relevant as that is the only GW system portraying space combat, so what is or is not reasonable within BFG is a yardstick since we do not have RL ships like 40K to compare against.

The Damage capacity of ships in 40K does not scale linearly or in line with the dimensions of the ship. An Imperial battleship has 12 Damage while a cruiser has 8 yet the battleship is twice as long. The Planet Killer, so big that its construction was thought by the Imperium to have only been possible within the warp space overlap in the Eye, only had 14 Damage. Clearly there seems to be a point of diminishing return. Therefore there is no reason to suppose a Gloriana would have a dramatically different Damage capacity. That is simply famboyism. It sounds like someone does not know their 40K space background.

This is even before examination about the potential effect of that deathstrike warhead. Special torpedo munitions in BFG can cause automatic critical hits, so that Deathstrike warhead could have produced equivalent results to a vortex torpedo hit.

So whatever else might be said about the Vigilus writing, the withdrawal of Abaddon’s flagship is not that far fetched, especially given the symbolism of that ship and the immense prestige loss if it should be destroyed. Also it is consistent with the BFG background, where many ship engagements were fought to disengagement not to the total destruction of one ship. While one might complain about why then to suffer a devastating critical hit, it is not impossible, just as it is possible to lose a character in a 40K game in a single hit due to a series of bad rolls.

in what phase does the prayer activate?

Iracundus wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 krakjen wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
i think the writers didnt do their research on what a Gloriana Class starship is...

Spoiler:

- Sure enough, the plan worked, with the Imperial Navy's remaining ships trying to open up a path for the Aeldari (there's a funny little bit here about how they dragged so many ships for this attack away from other planets that the Necrons, etc just took them) and the Eldar managed to ram the Vengeful spirit, ripping a whopping great big hole in it. The ship is very nearly dead, but manages to pull off an emergency warp translation (and therefore will probably be fixed up and fine by the time the writers need it as a plot device), but this hands naval superiority/equality at least back to the Imperium.

I know GW has to fit as many copywritten units/weapons into a story as possible, ut a deathstrike missile is a battlefield weapon, not a naval weapon and an Eldar ship is incredibly tiny. The Vengeful Spirit is something like ELEVEN miles long!

They also forget that those ships are equipped with powerful voidshields.

BFG rules: Ramming damage is not deflected by shields.

Any damage inflicted in BFG has a chance to cause critical hits, and some of those critical hits can inflict additional damage. Bulkhead Collapse for example inflicts an additiona +D6 damage. For comparison, an Emperor class battleship has 12 Damage points and losing half cripples a ship in BFG.

So can imagine the ram inflicting at least 1 point of damage, then a critical hit for 6 Damage. 7 total Damage at least. Unlikely? Yes, but not impossible. A Gloriana class might have more than 12 Damage points but even so, such a massive hit would be likely to lead to withdrawal, rather than risk its crippling or loss.

In what way does BFG rules have anything to do with this? These games rarely reflect the fluff, however, a book CAN reflect the fluff accurately but GW is writing saturday morning cartoons lately. You don't seem like you know what a Gloriana class ship is either with the statement of "It might have".. It's orders of magnitudes more powerful and durable than any other ship ever constructed (Thats why only less than 2 dozen were ever constructed). One eldar ship isn't going to blow "huge holes" in it.. Again, deathstrike missiles are battlefield weapons and are a complete and utter joke in a void war.

But the fluff has been a disaster since the Ward Era anyway, unless you love G.I Joe style writing.

BFG is relevant as that is the only GW system portraying space combat, so what is or is not reasonable within BFG is a yardstick since we do not have RL ships like 40K to compare against.

The Damage capacity of ships in 40K does not scale linearly or in line with the dimensions of the ship. An Imperial battleship has 12 Damage while a cruiser has 8 yet the battleship is twice as long. The Planet Killer, so big that its construction was thought by the Imperium to have only been possible within the warp space overlap in the Eye, only had 14 Damage. Clearly there seems to be a point of diminishing return. Therefore there is no reason to suppose a Gloriana would have a dramatically different Damage capacity. That is simply famboyism. It sounds like someone does not know their 40K space background.

also consider, even if it was an eldar cruiser, you're talking about a 5 kilometer slab of wraith bone, accelerated to a fairly high speed that directly hits the hull of the ship. this will deal CONSIDERABLE damage. and depending what is hurt could very well knock the ship out of the fight, ESPECIALLY if Abaddon is being careful not to let his flagship be destroyed

Well, as the rest of Ablaze is out, it looks like everything has been revealed.

We're just waiting on the Master of Executions, Lord Discordant, Havocs, and Terminators to release, which could be a single wave.

Ideally, they'll also release the Venomcrawler and oblits separately, but I have a feeling that wont be for a while...

Don't forget that the Chaos Lord from Blackstone Fortress looks like he will get a separate release too, based on the codex referring to him as a generic Lord and the fact that Chaos now has standard access to Thunder Hammers.

 Tiberius501 wrote:

 zend wrote:
There will be so much reeeeeeeee if Sanguinius comes back in any sort of physical capacity. Might as well bring back Ferrus, the original Alpharius, and Conrad too if they do though.

Imagine though if it was Horus' talon that strikes down Dante and rebirths Sanguinius' spirit or something. The same weapon that was used to kill Sanguinius brings him back in the wake of another dead Blood Angel hero. Dat drama tho. It won't happen haha, Dante will just get Primarised if anything, but I think it'd be cool.
But it would also spit in the face of other people who should get their primarchs over Sanguinius so I agree there. Definitely should be Russ or Lion or any of the others hinted to return over a legitimately dead one.

You know what would be even better tho? If instead of stabbing Dante with the Talon he stabbed Guilliman! And he died too! And then the Emperor was so shaken by the death of his favorite son, he rises from the Golden Throne and screams NOOOOOOO and uses his psychic power to fly around the Earth fast, so fast like faster than the speed of light that it reverses time until we're back before the 13th Black Crusade and Guilliman is still alive and in stasis and there's no Cocatrice Malediction or primaris or Cawl Who?? And before the Custodes (who stay on Terra where they belong) even notice he's gone the Emperor jumps back on the Throne like nothing happened. Except he winks and that's how you know it was all real!

I mean at this point, despite all this Advancing the Storyline, the new setting is just as static as the old one. It's almost like nothing really momentous changes unless they need an excuse to revive a dead primarch or squat the entire space marine line.

drbored wrote:
Well, as the rest of Ablaze is out, it looks like everything has been revealed.

We're just waiting on the Master of Executions, Lord Discordant, Havocs, and Terminators to release, which could be a single wave.

Ideally, they'll also release the Venomcrawler and oblits separately, but I have a feeling that wont be for a while...

At this point, I would honestly be okay with pre-orders being a couple of weeks away for the Havocs and Terminators. I just pre-ordered Abbadon and a squad of CSM today. I still haven't finished building all of Shadowspear yet. Both my wallet and my paint station could use some time to recover a bit.

It isn't like they're going to go away.

Do we know how many data sheets are being changed?

Voss wrote:
It isn't like they're going to go away.

Yeah, but my FLGS's pre-order discount does.

Abaddon, Dark Apostle, Terminators, Havocs, Obliterators - all the other new data-sheets are for brand new units. Chaos Space Marines got a new data-sheet but have no changes that I can see other than access to the new minigun. Chaos Lords and any character or unit (i.e. Chosen) that can access the Melee Weapons list can also take Thunder Hammers now.

Caederes wrote:
Don't forget that the Chaos Lord from Blackstone Fortress looks like he will get a separate release too, based on the codex referring to him as a generic Lord and the fact that Chaos now has standard access to Thunder Hammers.

I dunno, with the amount of kits that get stuck in boxes until those disappear and never get a release I wouldn't count on anything getting a separate release.
We have now what? Two units that we are unable to build? Cultists and chosen, both of which had kits in boxes that are no longer available.
Chosen came and disappeared again, while the cultists got replaced by a very puzzling box without the leader or special weapons and are snapfit (wth GW ?_?)

The difference here is that the BSF character is on a separate sprue all by himself.

The other difference is that Blackstone Fortress wasn't a starter set, where models are more likely to remain exclusive. I'd be very surprised (and disappointed) if the Obsidius Mallex model doesn't get a separate release in the next few weeks.

Caederes wrote:
The other difference is that Blackstone Fortress wasn't a starter set, where models are more likely to remain exclusive. I'd be very surprised (and disappointed) if the Obsidius Mallex model doesn't get a separate release in the next few weeks.

This. It also leads to my hope that the other models in it get released, if they do, this could be a greater year for chaos.

 zend wrote:
There will be so much reeeeeeeee if Sanguinius comes back in any sort of physical capacity. Might as well bring back Ferrus, the original Alpharius, and Conrad too if they do though.

I'm down. It was stupid to kill them off in the first place.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Tiberius501 wrote:

 zend wrote:
There will be so much reeeeeeeee if Sanguinius comes back in any sort of physical capacity. Might as well bring back Ferrus, the original Alpharius, and Conrad too if they do though.

Imagine though if it was Horus' talon that strikes down Dante and rebirths Sanguinius' spirit or something. The same weapon that was used to kill Sanguinius brings him back in the wake of another dead Blood Angel hero. Dat drama tho. It won't happen haha, Dante will just get Primarised if anything, but I think it'd be cool.
But it would also spit in the face of other people who should get their primarchs over Sanguinius so I agree there. Definitely should be Russ or Lion or any of the others hinted to return over a legitimately dead one.

You know what would be even better tho? If instead of stabbing Dante with the Talon he stabbed Guilliman! And he died too! And then the Emperor was so shaken by the death of his favorite son, he rises from the Golden Throne and screams NOOOOOOO and uses his psychic power to fly around the Earth fast, so fast like faster than the speed of light that it reverses time until we're back before the 13th Black Crusade and Guilliman is still alive and in stasis and there's no Cocatrice Malediction or primaris or Cawl Who?? And before the Custodes (who stay on Terra where they belong) even notice he's gone the Emperor jumps back on the Throne like nothing happened. Except he winks and that's how you know it was all real!

*wipes tear from eye* Beautiful. Would that it were so.

I think people get hung up on the power of the Vengeful Spirit and Gloriana class ships in general. These were the Legion flagships, designed to be among the most powerful warships humanity had ever built. But they were not invincible. They were more powerful than any other ship one on one, and they were flagships that were commanded by the best strategic minds in the Imperial Navy, frequently by Primarchs too. They were surrounded by dozens of other ships too.

But they were far from invincible. The Dark Angels Gloriana was on a skeleton crew and battered to near space unworthiness by the end of the Heresy. She was almost lost to one Death Guard battleship. And if I remember that part right, it was a ramming attack too!

By 40k most of the Glorianas were lost and the Vengeful Spirit has been through 10,000 years of battle and Warp mutations. She’s described by GW as having sections open to space and unusable. She’s a shadow of her former glory by 40k and is still one of the most powerful ships in existence.

 Thanatos73 wrote:
I think people get hung up on the power of the Vengeful Spirit and Gloriana class ships in general. These were the Legion flagships, designed to be among the most powerful warships humanity had ever built. But they were not invincible. They were more powerful than any other ship one on one, and they were flagships that were commanded by the best strategic minds in the Imperial Navy, frequently by Primarchs too. They were surrounded by dozens of other ships too.

But they were far from invincible. The Dark Angels Gloriana was on a skeleton crew and battered to near space unworthiness by the end of the Heresy. She was almost lost to one Death Guard battleship. And if I remember that part right, it was a ramming attack too!

By 40k most of the Glorianas were lost and the Vengeful Spirit has been through 10,000 years of battle and Warp mutations. She’s described by GW as having sections open to space and unusable. She’s a shadow of her former glory by 40k and is still one of the most powerful ships in existence.

There is a scale drawing of a Gloriana class alongside a "standard" battle barge in FW Horus Heresy Book 3. The Gloriana is about 2x as long in length. However as demonstrated by an Emperor battleship vs. a Lunar cruiser comparison, doubling the length only resulted in about 50% extra Damage capacity, and the Planet Killer vs. the Emperor class only yielded an extra 2 Damage points though we do not know for certain the length of the Planet Killer. I highly doubt the Damage capacity of the Gloriana exceeding the 14 of the Planet Killer.

Even IF for purely the sake of argument, we generously gave a Gloriana 50% more than an Emperor, i.e. a total of 18, a single Bulkhead Collapse inflicting 6 extra Damage means 7 Damage inflicted. That is still over 7/18, or over 1/3 of the total Damage capacity in a single blow. It is easy to see why any commander would withdraw their flagship in such a situation, especially if it might have already taken damage earlier in the battle.