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NFW losing their S6 status? I really, really hope that this is a horribly off centre rumour that proves to be false.

Why give a normal PAGK a force weapon but lose the S6? I'd much rather they were just power weapons but kept the S6 and let GKT and above have them as force weapons. Surely the S6 the THE big selling point here? Well, that and the fact they could be a power weapon but I don't see the advantage of giving normal troops a Force weapon when mostly PAGK are likely to be going toe to toe with regular troops who usually only have 1 wound anyway. The 'Force' part would be largely redundant in that case but the S6 would most definitely not be redundant. Ever.

Also, the idea of GK being an extremely elite army is really great but rather than the rending options, I would prefer it if PAGK could use psycannons to pin instead - maybe with a small blast marker? That would really help against horde armies.

And, finally, glad to see death cultists are still gonna be in there. I've not considered them before as the points could have been spent on more PAGK but with a new role for them, hopefully they could be part of a melee HQ? The only thing is using their infiltrate rule - if they are part of a retinue/squad with models that can't infiltrate then that rule would be wasted. Perhaps the rumours of them only being part of a retinue are slightly off kilter?

ColdSadHungry wrote:NFW losing their S6 status? I really, really hope that this is a horribly off centre rumour that proves to be false.

Why give a normal PAGK a force weapon but lose the S6? I'd much rather they were just power weapons but kept the S6 and let GKT and above have them as force weapons. Surely the S6 the THE big selling point here? Well, that and the fact they could be a power weapon but I don't see the advantage of giving normal troops a Force weapon when mostly PAGK are likely to be going toe to toe with regular troops who usually only have 1 wound anyway. The 'Force' part would be largely redundant in that case but the S6 would most definitely not be redundant. Ever.

lol, actually it's even worse. the grey knights are the best daemon hunters the imperium has per the fluff (hell, their current codex is even called just that...daemonhunters!). making all of the NFW force weapons doesn't help them much in that role seeing as how the daemon codex has a rule that their units IGNORE instant death. the s6 was the only thing that was helping the GK against them. unless they've got a special army wide rule that allows them to bypass those restrictions, they simply become the best tyrannid hunters in the galaxy instead.

aka_mythos wrote:the Grey Knights version being called the "Penitent Engine-X" and the SoB one being called "Penitent Engine-Y."

I think you mean the Grey Knights version would be Penitent Engine-Y and the SoB one would be called Penitent Engine-X

warboss wrote:lol, actually it's even worse. the grey knights are the best daemon hunters the imperium has per the fluff (hell, their current codex is even called just that...daemonhunters!). making all of the NFW force weapons doesn't help them much in that role seeing as how the daemon codex has a rule that their units IGNORE instant death. the s6 was the only thing that was helping the GK against them. unless they've got a special army wide rule that allows them to bypass those restrictions, they simply become the best tyrannid hunters in the galaxy instead.

They may be unbalanced now against daemons, but daemons will be redone as well at some point, 4E was the edition-of-eternal-warrior anyway.

I also hope that GK can be the few and the proud, however the 6str being removed isn't the end of the world, word is on the street that you can get the bonus str or rending for either the bolter or NFW for the squad.

It seems the idea /might/ be that GK's are about the same cost as they are now, but if you stack on all the upgrades in the universe on them you can get the "20 man in 2k points" army we all dream of using

this fits in with the conflicting rumors (yes str, no str, yes IST no ist)

I'm not into the idea of a GK penitent engine myself. Surely, the driver of the penitent engine is paying a pennance for some wrong doing?

IDK much about the witch hunters fluff but the penitent engine, flagellants, sisters repentia etc show me that they they are all into punishments for lack of faith, or proving faith.

With the GK, there is no repentance. If you're not 'pure' you die, it's as simple as that. I'm betting that these GK penitent engine rumours are based on a walker of some kind but it's not a penitent engine. ( no comments on GW ignoring fluff necessary - I'm aware of that but Grey Knights and pennance do not go hand in hand imo).

The Penitent Engine is a punishment. They are strapped to it, pumped up with tons of drugs that effect their mental and biological state (making the victim live longer and forcing them to feel a need for redemption), and the machine is led to charge against the penitent's forcer allies. He/She doesn't die as his/her body is torn to shreds by gunfire, not until they are obliterated, and the penitent engine doesn't stop killing until it is rendered inoperable or the priest controlling it tells it to stop.

Arco-flagellation is a similar punishment, just of a different nature (limbs replaced with power flails, minds hard-wired to some activation switch which causes them to go into a rampage, etc, but obviously they aren't strapped to a vehicle).

I think you're looking into it too literally, it is quite likely just a name used to describe a walker. Proof is in the pictures. Of which there are none...

Yes, now, my idea for an Impertinent Engine is that whatever you do to it, it just comes back with some mostly irrelevant claptrap impugning your authority and skill until your blood boils and your head explodes.

This would be represented by a forced Ld test.

Kilkrazy wrote:Yes, now, my idea for an Impertinent Engine is that whatever you do to it, it just comes back with some mostly irrelevant claptrap impugning your authority and skill until your blood boils and your head explodes.

This would be represented by a forced Ld test.

or to be less stupid, it's just a GK dreadnaught piloted by a living pilot that looks similar to a penitent engine and people are needlessly complaining.

If you got rid of all fo the needless complaining the News and Rumors forum would be dead.

Kilkrazy wrote:Yes, now, my idea for an Impertinent Engine is that whatever you do to it, it just comes back with some mostly irrelevant claptrap impugning your authority and skill until your blood boils and your head explodes.

This would be represented by a forced Ld test.

Holy crap - that sounds like what happens when you become a Mod!!!

I think someone just got the name wrong - as Melissia has already pointed out, that name is already associated with a punishment machine...

It is a punishment machine for punishing the enemies of the Emporer.

Kilkrazy wrote:It is a punishment machine for punishing the enemies of the Emporer.

By strapping the enemies to the machine and sending them at their former friends, yes.

puma713 wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:the Grey Knights version being called the "Penitent Engine-X" and the SoB one being called "Penitent Engine-Y."

I think you mean the Grey Knights version would be Penitent Engine-Y and the SoB one would be called Penitent Engine-X

Har-har-har...

ColdSadHungry wrote:Why give a normal PAGK a force weapon but lose the S6? I'd much rather they were just power weapons but kept the S6 and let GKT and above have them as force weapons. Surely the S6 the THE big selling point here? Well, that and the fact they could be a power weapon but I don't see the advantage of giving normal troops a Force weapon when mostly PAGK are likely to be going toe to toe with regular troops who usually only have 1 wound anyway. The 'Force' part would be largely redundant in that case but the S6 would most definitely not be redundant. Ever.

We haven't seen the rest of the rules. In the context of the rest of the rules S6 maybe the redundancy thats been chopped for that reason. They are suppose to have a number of group psyker powers and it very well could be something that is no longer a given, but something that is a power.

Doing it in that hypothetical way would allows the unit to get more bang for their buck. Where they get a list of powers either paying for what they choose (if its point buy) or paying only for the most powerful (if they get multiple in a fixed list). In the old list you payed for S6 whether you were assaulting every turn or not. Now you might get comparable advantages for when you aren't assaulting.

Just Dave wrote:I think you're looking into it too literally, it is quite likely just a name used to describe a walker. Proof is in the pictures. Of which there are none...

Id say THIS. The use of the name makes me think its likely a walker similar in arrangement to the PE, as in the driver is outside ( or "wears" it) not in it...think kinda like the Power Loader that Ripley wears in Aliens. Something lighter and faster than a dreadnaught. Much lighter armored, the pilots armor suit (PA or T is the ??) protects him not the walkers.


Overall i think GW has the potential to drop the biggest load of awesome they ever have with the GKs...it just remains to be seen if they actually do or not...

If the release is March-May then Id expect teasers to hit anytime after the beginning of Feb.

Melissia wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It is a punishment machine for punishing the enemies of the Emporer.

By strapping the enemies to the machine and sending them at their former friends, yes.

My one also punishes the friends of the Emporer for not being angry enough., thus their morale is boosted.

aka_mythos wrote:We haven't seen the rest of the rules. In the context of the rest of the rules S6 maybe the redundancy thats been chopped for that reason. They are suppose to have a number of group psyker powers and it very well could be something that is no longer a given, but something that is a power.

Doing it in that hypothetical way would allows the unit to get more bang for their buck. Where they get a list of powers either paying for what they choose (if its point buy) or paying only for the most powerful (if they get multiple in a fixed list). In the old list you payed for S6 whether you were assaulting every turn or not. Now you might get comparable advantages for when you aren't assaulting.

More useless dice rolling, and a psychic hood shouldn't be able to cripple a daemonhunters army in close combat. Taking Nemesis Force Weapons as literally psychic powers is just painful regardless of how many instant death effects you may have. The ability to kill multiple wound units across the army isn't that good when you consider a large proportion of the enemy is only single wound, so they're just power weapons. I would rather have simple power weapons than having to roll dice every time the GK entered combat.

And with GK there should be no real 'discount' version. As an elite army their edge was always the S6 weapons regardless, and it would be disappoint to see them redone, even in plastics, if they were now an army which required me to test every squad in combat every turn to simply turn them into the traditional GK (S6).

Ehsteve wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:We haven't seen the rest of the rules. In the context of the rest of the rules S6 maybe the redundancy thats been chopped for that reason. They are suppose to have a number of group psyker powers and it very well could be something that is no longer a given, but something that is a power.

Doing it in that hypothetical way would allows the unit to get more bang for their buck. Where they get a list of powers either paying for what they choose (if its point buy) or paying only for the most powerful (if they get multiple in a fixed list). In the old list you payed for S6 whether you were assaulting every turn or not. Now you might get comparable advantages for when you aren't assaulting.

More useless dice rolling, and a psychic hood shouldn't be able to cripple a daemonhunters army in close combat. Taking Nemesis Force Weapons as literally psychic powers is just painful regardless of how many instant death effects you may have. The ability to kill multiple wound units across the army isn't that good when you consider a large proportion of the enemy is only single wound, so they're just power weapons. I would rather have simple power weapons than having to roll dice every time the GK entered combat.

And with GK there should be no real 'discount' version. As an elite army their edge was always the S6 weapons regardless, and it would be disappoint to see them redone, even in plastics, if they were now an army which required me to test every squad in combat every turn to simply turn them into the traditional GK (S6).

My thinking exactly.

Also, as things are, GK need to keep their enemies at range for as long as possible until their numbers are low enough to make the S6 advantage count. Making NFW weaker simply means you'll have to keep the enemy at range for even longer and then when you do end up in CC, there's more left to chance than there is now.

I agree that we don't know what the new rules are and losing S6 may turn out to mean nothing but, just for the intimidation factor alone, multiple S6 attacks would make anyone think twice before charging headlong into close combat. Odd rules, wargear, more dice rolling simply makes it more time consuming and gives the opponent more belief because there is more chance involved.

ColdSadHungry wrote:
I agree that we don't know what the new rules are and losing S6 may turn out to mean nothing but, just for the intimidation factor alone, multiple S6 attacks would make anyone think twice before charging headlong into close combat. Odd rules, wargear, more dice rolling simply makes it more time consuming and gives the opponent more belief because there is more chance involved.

Yeah, and a hail of 20+ power weapon strikes won't.

ColdSadHungry wrote:Also, as things are, GK need to keep their enemies at range for as long as possible until their numbers are low enough to make the S6 advantage count. Making NFW weaker simply means you'll have to keep the enemy at range for even longer and then when you do end up in CC, there's more left to chance than there is now.

Well the rules seem to indicate that every GK Shooting weapon either has or can get Rending (the true sign of lazy idea-less uninspired rules writing), so keeping the enemy at range a bit longer mightn't be the hardest thing in the world do to. In fact, it may end up being preferable over HTH.

Have we heard any mention of a change to GK stats? Are they going to duck down to WS4? 'Cause that'd be mean...

Grundz wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:
I agree that we don't know what the new rules are and losing S6 may turn out to mean nothing but, just for the intimidation factor alone, multiple S6 attacks would make anyone think twice before charging headlong into close combat. Odd rules, wargear, more dice rolling simply makes it more time consuming and gives the opponent more belief because there is more chance involved.

Yeah, and a hail of 20+ power weapon strikes won't.

Not if they're Orks, they rarely get their 6+ save anyway.

Grundz wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:
I agree that we don't know what the new rules are and losing S6 may turn out to mean nothing but, just for the intimidation factor alone, multiple S6 attacks would make anyone think twice before charging headlong into close combat. Odd rules, wargear, more dice rolling simply makes it more time consuming and gives the opponent more belief because there is more chance involved.

Yeah, and a hail of 20+ power weapon strikes won't.

A reminder that Daemonhunters were also good because they were wounding most daemons on 2+ and there was no daemon they could not wound because they were S6 (as nothing could possibly have a toughness double their strength), and power weapons do diddly squat against their invulnerable saves.

If a regular unbuffed daemonhunter is wounding regular daemons on a 4+, then why not take bland, vanilla tactical marines against them? You'd save yourself a lot of points. Your only advantage then is shooting which defeats the purpose of Nemesis Force Weapons. They would no longer be a daemon killing force, just a bunch of assault marines sans the jump pack.

It's been said a couple of times already - we don't know the rules, so really we can't say much. We can infer conclusions from what we do know though, and then use historic examples from other Codices to guess as to what the rules might be in the end.

And that's what has me worried.

5th Ed is a mess of special rules and exceptions to exeptions. The whole concept of 'Universal Special Rules' in 5th is a joke, since so many things do something that's like a USR, but is slightly different. Each Codes adds more rules to the mix, and the pit gets deeper and deeper.

So let's look at that in the context of all GK's having actual Force Weapons. Ok, the S6 across the board was a simple thing to remember, and like Eh Steve says, meant that wounding things was simple - they wounded pretty much everything on a 2+, including most Daemons. Now, assuming what we've read is correct and assuming we take it at face value (they have Force Weapons, and the Strength of Force Weapons is As User), this meakes GK's S4 across the board, and suddenly they have trouble wounding the very things they're meant to fight.

And here lies the problem. They'll get some sort of exception. "Nemesis Force Weapons act as standard Force Weapons except against Daemons, who are always wounded on a 2+" or something like that. It's creating a rule that doesn't need to exist, an exception to a standard rule where just having them at S6 solved the problem without need for additional rules and exceptions to exceptions.

So this is what I'm afraid of, that we'll take simple rules that work and replace them with a few overlapping special rules to achieve the same effect. It's unnecessary.

Ehsteve wrote:
If a regular unbuffed daemonhunter is wounding regular daemons on a 4+, then why not take bland, vanilla tactical marines against them? You'd save yourself a lot of points. Your only advantage then is shooting which defeats the purpose of Nemesis Force Weapons. They would no longer be a daemon killing force, just a bunch of assault marines sans the jump pack.

My thought would be, that warhammer armies shouldn't be rock paper sizzors, if you are playing DH, you shouldn't be horrendously overpowered against daemons and bad against everything else like they are now. I understand the fluff logic, but having an army that is basically unplayable because it is designed to beat up another, also underpowered army is dumb.

You don't take bland, vanilla, tactical marines, because DH can't, it's a different army, your arguement is irrelevent. Why take guardsmen, marines are better! why take blood claws when you can take khorne bezerkers!... wat?

Not to mention, that it's been said that you can /buy/ the str upgrade for NFW

Grundz wrote:

Ehsteve wrote:
If a regular unbuffed daemonhunter is wounding regular daemons on a 4+, then why not take bland, vanilla tactical marines against them? You'd save yourself a lot of points. Your only advantage then is shooting which defeats the purpose of Nemesis Force Weapons. They would no longer be a daemon killing force, just a bunch of assault marines sans the jump pack.

My thought would be, that warhammer armies shouldn't be rock paper sizzors, if you are playing DH, you shouldn't be horrendously overpowered against daemons and bad against everything else like they are now. I understand the fluff logic, but having an army that is basically unplayable because it is designed to beat up another, also underpowered army is dumb.

You don't take bland, vanilla, tactical marines, because DH can't, it's a different army, your arguement is irrelevent. Why take guardsmen, marines are better! why take blood claws when you can take khorne bezerkers!... wat?

Not to mention, that it's been said that you can /buy/ the str upgrade for NFW

What I was trying to say was: your basic troops are as effective against daemons as any other army. This goes against the fluff of the DH army. You'd be better off with a bland SM army and save yourself some points. The S6 was both easier to remember and implement then having to cast psychic powers each turn, or having to assign each squad different Strenght values.

Psychic powers should not be the be all and end all of GKs.

Grundz wrote:My thought would be, that warhammer armies shouldn't be rock paper sizzors, if you are playing DH, you shouldn't be horrendously overpowered against daemons and bad against everything else like they are now. I understand the fluff logic, but having an army that is basically unplayable because it is designed to beat up another, also underpowered army is dumb.

And keeping them at S6 rather than S4 but wounding Daemons easier would solve that - S6 against everything is equal. That's why the NFW rules work right now. And Daemonhunters aren't "horrendously overpowered" against Daemons. Not by a long shot.

Mad4Minis wrote:

Just Dave wrote:I think you're looking into it too literally, it is quite likely just a name used to describe a walker. Proof is in the pictures. Of which there are none...

Id say THIS. The use of the name makes me think its likely a walker similar in arrangement to the PE, as in the driver is outside ( or "wears" it) not in it...think kinda like the Power Loader that Ripley wears in Aliens. Something lighter and faster than a dreadnaught. Much lighter armored, the pilots armor suit (PA or T is the ??) protects him not the walkers.

Maybe it would count as a monstrous creature instead of a vehicle?

Grundz wrote:
Not to mention, that it's been said that you can /buy/ the str upgrade for NFW

It would be nice to see a long list of possible upgrades to apply to the units, like with IG stormtroopers, or flash gitz.

I don't think comparing GK's to two units nobody uses is really the best idea...

H.B.M.C. wrote:And Daemonhunters aren't "horrendously overpowered" against Daemons. Not by a long shot.

Really? can you send me a copy of the new codex so I can see?

Grundz wrote:Really? can you send me a copy of the new codex so I can see?

Don't be an ass.

I was talking about the existing Codex. If you weren't, make your posts clearer and don't include things like "like they are now" which tends to imply that you were talking about the current book as well.