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With the CP changes, I don't know that the AoR is quite the asset it used to be. Don't get me wrong the CT shifting tricks are always a good time and can lend some clutch flexibility, but the extra points and the loss of heavier units (or units outside Kill Teams) is a major drawback.

To me not much of the rest of the SM roster really jumps out at me. Other than Redemptor Dreads, attack bikes or maybe the new preds. But I still feel like they dont really offer anything new.

I think the CT shifting gives much needed flexibility to adapt to a opposing list outside of the list building process.

I am eager to try out double spectrus teams with the points reduction to Fusils and specialisms. They saw a drop of 30 pts total which is quite nice for a unit that can be fairly hard to remove and offers moderate consistant AT.

Anything jumping out at people with the new rules and points?

First thing I noticed was that even though doctrines have been improved, our Mission Tactics wasn't adjusted. Makes our unique chapter super doctrine pretty useless when chapter can just stay in devestator all game.

Other than that, free wargear on veterans making vet based teams expensive but hard hitting. I might actually get to use a frag cannon in 9th yet!

The biggest change: probably every DW Vet in most armies is now objectively equipped wrong. At 27 points you need to have more than just a shotgun or bolter to justify your existence. In fact, there's now literally no point to having a Vet with a boltgun (or meltagun, flamer, plasma - not that those were ever taken) as the combi weapons are now objectively better.

I suspect there's some pretty good combos with the Vets but you'll need some pretty extensive proxying or very esoteric models to unlock them.

Yeah, definitely a shame, I was always fond of the basic weapons vets had but between 9th gakking on sia and the new points I don’t think they’re getting pulled out of the loadout bin for a while.

Does someone have any fun ideas on mixing Intercessors, Hellblasters and Desolators in a Kill Team? Key word here being fun not necessarily optimal. Thinking about taking my stalker/heavy plasma kill team add in some regular bolters and both variety of missiles to form two new kill teams of some sort myself.

ok, so todays article has (finally!) brought us some infomation about how deathwatch will function this edition.

link to article:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/01/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-space-marine-chapters/

so, in addition to the base "oaths of moment" faction ability of all space marines (full re-rolls to hit and wound vs one named unit per turn), our deathwatch detachment (called the Black Spear Taskforce detachment) ability is a return of Mission tactics. We can grant all astartes units in the army:

Substained hits1 (ie exploding 6s to hit)
Lethal Hits (ie 6s to hit auto-wound)
Precision (6s to hit can target characters in units)

we can only use each tactic once (though i hold out hope for a stratagem that lets us repeat a mission tactic)

They also previewed the Deathwatch veterans datasheet front (ie the stats, not the unit composition rules). the old special issue ammo is gone with bolters having the standard bolter profile, as are shotguns by name, but they have introduced "long vigil ranged weapon" as a catch-all weapon, which i'm guessing covers shotguns. Its a 24", 1 shot str 4 AP 0 D1 weapon, with rapid fire 1, anti-infantry 4+ (ie always wounds on a 4+ vs INFANTRY, and any wound over that value is a Critical wound) and devistating wounds (critical wounds deal mortal wounds). So, they are not bad at short range, at least against infantry units. Frag cannons are lost their multiple profiles, but are str 7 blast with D3 attacks and rapid fire D3 (which would kick in at 9"), and infurnus heavy bolters can no long shoot both profiles, but the heavy bolter half has gained Substained hits1.

also, they appear to have consolidated the various power weapon options into "long vigil melee weapon", which is A3, 3+. str 5 ap-2 d1. Heavy thunder hammers and xenophase blades are still a thing, though.


im not sure how we will pan out, but im reasonably happy with these. im not sure if we are getting sprue-locked, but the rules for a missile lunacher suggest we are not.

Long Vigil weapons are Combi-Weapons. Shotguns and Stalkers are gone.

TL;DR - Don't even worry about trying to learn Deathwatch rules for 10th, cause GW certainly can't be arsed to write them.

Sterling191 wrote:

TL;DR - Don't even worry about trying to learn Deathwatch rules for 10th, cause GW certainly can't be arsed to write them.

Well I'll wait until I've seen ALL the rules.... But this preview makes me glad I didn't build a DW force for our currently running Crusade/Campaign.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/12/free-space-marines-index-cards-dark-angels-blood-angels-space-wolves-black-templars-and-deathwatch/


So, our index is out. Of note from a quick skim:

Special issue ammo are now three separate stratagem, which are either one regular marine unit or two kill teams.

Kill Teams are basically similar, built around 5 of the base infantry for that armour type, but extras have gone down to 0-4, or even 0-2, and combat squadding is gone, so no more 5 man eliminators with obsec.

Watch masters grant both advance and CHARGE AND fall back and charge.

Blackshields are gone.

Corvus can take primaris

Their is likely more but I'm in work

Yep, glad I didn't build what I'd had in mind for our last 9e Crusade.

Still might be interested in doing some DW (i like the idea & their flyer model).
But I'll have to sit down & fiddle with it once thier actual Codex arrives & see if I can make something I like 10e wise to go with those flyers.

Other things of note:
1. Van vets continue to get dunked on. No heavy hammers at all, not in Proteus kill team (although regular vets can as the heavy hammers are in their boxset or something), no extra entries for stand alone van vets.
2. Quite a few minor mistakes, for example the spectrus team lists out all the weapon profiles you would expect, but no one has access to anything other than default gear (swapping out for reiver bolt carbines, las fusils etc).
4. Terminators keep basically all their options (including triple heavies, plasma cannons and sergeant having melee choices), but cyclone + hammer is a no no.
5. Vet squad is now a kill team, vet bikers and DW terminators are not though (useful for activating strats).
6. Proteus kill team is easily the strongest option. Not-combi weapons and assault cannons can wombo combo their inbuilt devastating wounds with hellfire rounds strat. Presumably if you stick a firstborn captain in one of two such units you can use the strat for free/twice.

**edit** and another mark against the van vets, they ran out of ammo so don't get guns of any kind when in a proteus kill team (generic long vigil melee weapon and ccw only).

Proteus Kill Teams are one of the tamest offenders when it comes to MW output with Hellfire. A Sternguard brick is putting out ~25 - 50 MWs in an activation (if you want to burn their double tap), Assault Cannon Termies will put out 15 by themselves if you tipple up, ditto for an Eliminator unit + Captain, except that's directly into the face of a Character thanks to Precision.

My personal favorite stupid coalescence is the Bike squad + Chaplain with a Multi-melta Attack bike putting out a solid 10+ MWs on average by itself in melta range.

We're codex Hellfire + Devastating Wounds now, and it's gonna get nuked from orbit (rightly so)

so, today in the imperium article, GW mentioned its pushed out a patch to hellfire rounds, which now has a "except [devastating wounds] weapons" restriction added to it.

While it should have been caught in playtesting and never been seen by the wider public, Props to GW for taking quick action to remove this most problematic interaction before deathwatch either had a reign of terror, or got insta-banned form every tournament.

"For the purposes of interacting with terrain features, all models in units with the Kill Team ability are treated as Infantry, even though similar models in other units may have the Mounted or Jump Pack keywords."

Does that mean that kill teams with bikes have the mounted keyword? Cant see anything about it on the cards.

Gaen wrote:
"For the purposes of interacting with terrain features, all models in units with the Kill Team ability are treated as Infantry, even though similar models in other units may have the Mounted or Jump Pack keywords."

Does that mean that kill teams with bikes have the mounted keyword? Cant see anything about it on the cards.

form the literal wording of that quoted sentence, no.


A biker marine in a [kill team] keyworded unit is just a long based infantryman, able to climb walls, etc. the fact that the same model in a vet bikers unit WOULD be [mounted] is being called out as irrelevant for purposes of moving over terrain.

so, deathwatch can still wallhack bikers.

Wish it saia clearer imounted is replaced and not have both.

tneva82 wrote:
Wish it saia clearer imounted is replaced and not have both.

well, the bikes haven't LOST the keyword, its just replaced with [infantry] for the purposes of movement, and ONLY then.

if you hypotheticaly shot at the squad with an [anti-mounted] weapon, it would get its bonus (though i admit that is based on some secondhand reading of goonhammer stuff, i can't point to a designers commentary where they spell that out)

Ah good point. So clear enough.

Was more of thinking go-kart and it's use with mounted.

Albeit don't know can dw even use the go-cart. But that one popped in mind first

So cost wise, looks like there's a tax on the Proteus Kill Team. No way to save on that model selection. The rest can get a small discount, but I'm pretty sure they're weaker versions in a lot of cases.

Now we have four units that dont have a kill team to belong to.

Infernus
Primaris Jump
New Sternguard
Desolators

Speaking of kill teams think we will get any new once or will the new units fit into the old once? New sternguard and new Terminators or thats too close to proteus?

my assumption is they will fold all of those into the existing Fortis kill team (as they are all tacticus armoured marines), if they do bring them in at all (as opposed to just letting us use them as their codex datasheet units).

the other option i could see happening is a separation of all the jump capable suits into a single all jump kill team, but thats less likely in my opinion.

For proteus a simple solution might be to just let veterans have the new sternguard weapons options?

By the way will there be any point in having assault units in a fortis team with the new jump pack unit?

Fortis just needs a full redesign. Hopefully the codex comes up with something useful.

I'd be happy to see Proteus have a 2-3 Terminator cap and a major price reduction to make 4 terms not the only viable choice.