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Everywhere I look, I keep seeing people saying USR's are gone in 8th edition, but after looking at the Rubric Marines Datasheet that was released, I see several USR's. AoS Datasheet's have everything you need to know on them, but that does not seem to be the case. Pistol, Rapid Fire, Heavy, Melee, Assault, and 'Death to the False Emperor' are all rules listed n the Datasheet that have no actual Rules entry on it. This is just the first Datasheet we've seen so far, so for those happy or upset over the loss of USR's, might want to hold on those brakes, it looks like they are still here.

Ravingbantha wrote:
Everywhere I look, I keep seeing people saying USR's are gone in 8th edition, but after looking at the Rubric Marines Datasheet that was released, I see several USR's. AoS Datasheet's have everything you need to know on them, but that does not seem to be the case. Pistol, Rapid Fire, Heavy, Melee, Assault, and 'Death to the False Emperor' are all rules listed n the Datasheet that have no actual Rules entry on it. This is just the first Datasheet we've seen so far, so for those happy or upset over the loss of USR's, might want to hold on those brakes, it looks like they are still here.

Universal Special Rules are specifically things that alter the rules of the game or otherwise contradict it. Weapon types aren't special rules, because there is no gun that doesn't have a weapon type. The weapon type informs you which bits of the shooting rules to use from the core, they do not tell you how they work differently from the norm. Meanwhile a USR is something like "Rend" where it tells you how it alters the way AP works, or "Fleet" where it alters things if the unit runs, or anything like that.

A special rule is an exception to how the basic rules run. In that sense, the basic rules of the game are becoming more nuanced and robust (thanks in large part to things like modifiers and discrete movement values) so that fewer exceptions need to exist. Rend need not exist when you have armour mods, Fleet need not exist when you can tweak movement without making it a different unit type.

USR's are going away because the basic rules are doing more heavy lifting. This leaves special rules to outline unique ways in which a unit will interact with and subvert the core rules.

That said, something like Death to the False Emperor is likely going to be an armywide rule for Chaos marines, and is at least close in concept to a USR. But instead of being from a pool any army in the game can pull from, it is unique to a given faction or set of factions.

In the end USR's were just a place for the rules to hold a bunch of common exceptions that had built up over the years to deal with more nuanced cases that the core 40k system had trouble dealing with since 3rd dumped a lot of the more nuanced rules. With a more robust core system, you don't need to come up with many exceptions to get things to work in a way that doesn't break verisimilitude. Thus USR's don't need to be a core component of the new system. This allows the core to be more generalized and less bloated. It means it doesn't start making exceptions to rules until you actually look at specific units. So yeah, USR's as most folks know them are going away. But only because the core system doesn't need them as much, because it allows for a more nuanced series of results using core mechanics alone. Thus leaving special rules to be special rather than an integral part of how the system works.

Ravingbantha wrote:
Everywhere I look, I keep seeing people saying USR's are gone in 8th edition, but after looking at the Rubric Marines Datasheet that was released, I see several USR's. AoS Datasheet's have everything you need to know on them, but that does not seem to be the case. Pistol, Rapid Fire, Heavy, Melee, Assault, and 'Death to the False Emperor' are all rules listed n the Datasheet that have no actual Rules entry on it. This is just the first Datasheet we've seen so far, so for those happy or upset over the loss of USR's, might want to hold on those brakes, it looks like they are still here.

This is the second time this week I've encountered the assertion that weapon types are special rules, and it's wrong for the exact reasons Ronin said. You can't shoot a gun in this game without a weapon type to tell you how to shoot it. That's the definition of a core rule, not a special rule.

The difference between an armywide rule like DttFE and a USR is in the "U." If it's not meant to apply to more than one faction, it's not universal. Many armies in AoS have army-side rules that are printed in their battletome but not their warscroll- this is the same thing.

It's all technicalities really: yes USR have gone but they've been replaced by Keywords which work very similar to USR, yes formations are gone but now we have 14 universal detachments and army specific detachments which give bonuses to armies for taking specifc types of units. Seems like some things they have changed just enough so that they can give it a new name in order to remove peoples prejudices of it. I have nothing against GW doing this but that is kind of what they've done.

I've seen no indication that Keywords have any ruled attached to them. That means they are not USRs.

Some keywords will have rules applied to them. For example:

FLYER will probably have a rule that says they Fly and that they may move over models, including enemy models.

INFANTRY probably says they can embark and disembark on vehicles.

VEHICLE probably has a rule that says they may not embark or disembark on vehicles.


But, those are simple rules that people can normally see on their bespoken rules.

Youn wrote:
Some keywords will have rules applied to them. For example:

FLYER will probably have a rule that says they Fly and that they may move over models, including enemy models.

INFANTRY probably says they can embark and disembark on vehicles.

VEHICLE probably has a rule that says they may not embark or disembark on vehicles.


But, those are simple rules that people can normally see on their bespoken rules.

Even that's not the case. If you have a transport, it would have a rule that says "INFANTRY may embark," or a flyer would have a rule that says "This unit may fly." (which is a type of movement covered in the core rules)

Keywords allow you access to other rules, but are not rules themselves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mrhappyface wrote:
yes formations are gone but now we have 14 universal detachments and army specific detachments which give bonuses to armies for taking specifc types of units.

Formations require specific units; the new detachments only require battlefield roles. In addition, the bonuses are typically Command Points, which are an active resource compared to the passive bonuses of formations. Hardly the same thing.