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Discussions of the new FAQ are starting to calm down, and we can share our impressions. It will be especially interesting for those who missed it and did not read it. Some conclusions may seem hasty, and, of course, a full understanding requires repeated playtests. But here is our vision at the moment.

In fact, the changes expected with such trembling turned out to be not so much. All fits into incomplete 6 PDF-pages. The rules that used to be listed in the "beta" stage came into full right: Increasing the Smite difficulty by 1 after each cast, and the ban on targeting the character, if he is not BOTH visible, And the closest unit. And if the second, in fact, was implied initially, and does not change the game much, the first one should be looked at more precisely.

It is obvious for everyone, including Games Workshop game designers, that Smite available for any psyker eliminates many faction spells. Why should you try to cast a more expensive, and less useful spell, if there is always Smite, the use of which, moreover, is not limited? And the spam of mortal wounds definitely makes the game less interesting. From this point of view, the change is absolutely correct.

However, what about the armies, based on magic? For the Thousands of Sons and Gray Knights, it is separately written that the increase in value concerns only single characters. Units such as "Brotherhood of psykers" cast in as usual. But what should we do with ... the demons of Tzeentch? This army is not very good, and the spam of mortal wounds was, perhaps, one of the few effective solutions. The alternatives from their own magic are few, and they cannot be repeated at all. On the other hand, if you managed to cast Smite with 11, you still get the desired D6 wounds. And large birds still have bonuses for a cast. In general, the innovation, successful from the overall game balance point of view, but unfair to some factions.

Instead of the rules that came out of beta, two new ones were added there. This means that their use is recommended, but not mandatory for everyone. The first, in fact, prohibits deepstrike (and everything that is now called otherwise, but performs the same function) on the first turn for both players. You cannot place units outside your deployment zone. Despite the discontent of alpha strike fans, the solution, in general, is correct. It’s just like in previous editions. The correctness of the solution lies in the fact that, waiting for a deepstrike on the first turn, you, naturally, use some units as screen, and take valuable units away. However, you won’t stand still until the second turn, and you will have to change the position of your squads. But at the same time, you still have to keep in mind the prospect of deepstrike on the next turn. Adds exactly that tactical depth, which this edition lacks. In addition, this does not apply to the stratagems, which makes it possible to move squads closer to the enemy, making them more valuable. Still would be great if they returned a similar rule to droppods ...

Another beta rule prohibits the detachments based on the only one main keyword, as before. Now you need two. A nice innovation, which will limit sports alliances with no reference to background which started to return in this edition.

Next, come the general rules, the changes of which are no less important. Perhaps, the most pleasant is the increase in the number of command points for large detachments. Now the Battalion gives you 5 instead of 3 and Brigade 12 instead of 9. This refers to what we’ve discussed a lot in our reviews - the uselessness of the stratagems mechanics when there are so few command points to use them. It's great that game designers of GW also realize this and take measures. Although, growth could be more significant. 2-3 points - this can be just one additional stratagem.

Another thing that applies to many armies is the ban on the simultaneous use of different variations of FNP - if you have several abilities that allow you to ignore the wounds for a certain dice roll - you no longer use them one by one but have to choose the only one. It's also logical, because it was in past editions, but weakens, for example, Ultwe craftworld.

But strict detachment restriction for the tournament game is not so logical. The intention, of course, was good - again, to protect the game from the cadavers. But the Dark Eldar, with THE ARMY SPECIAL RULE that encourages you to take many small detachments, are not pleased at all. Add the same ban on the repetition of units (except transports and troops) more than 2/3/4 times, depending on the game scale, and you will get, perhaps, the most contradictory change in the rules. The fact is that some armies simply do not have so many effective units to use them without repetition. The long-suffering Sisters of Battle, for example. Fortunately, this rule is RECOMMENDED and is intended only for tournaments.

The remaining global changes relate to the nuances of using units without a codex (such as the assassins and the Legion of the Damned), which do not fundamentally change anything, and the price increases for the units which were supposed to get it - the main ones in this list are the Eldar Dark Reapers, Guilliman, and the flying Tyrants. But there are still a lot of interesting things in codex FAQ’s. However, this requires more careful study. Now, you can note the ban on using the Warptime for the Chaos units arrived from reserve (goodbye, the most popular tactics), and the PRICE for the added Poxwalkers is the complete destruction of yet another popular tactic.

In general, the vector of the changes is clear and correct - the game is moved towards background and roleplay style, stopping the spam of the similar units, spells, and abilities. However, this is not being done carefully enough, and some factions definitely suffer from it. Including those whose codices were issued recently, and therefore, there is no place for changes. And what do you think about the new FAQ?


More in our blog: https://warzone40k.com/warhammer-spring-faq

 Teena Hancock wrote:
Instead of the rules that came out of beta, two new ones were added there. This means that their use is recommended, but not mandatory for everyone. The first, in fact, prohibits deepstrike (and everything that is now called otherwise, but performs the same function) on the first turn for both players. You cannot place units outside your deployment zone. Despite the discontent of alpha strike fans, the solution, in general, is correct. It’s just like in previous editions. The correctness of the solution lies in the fact that, waiting for a deepstrike on the first turn, you, naturally, use some units as screen, and take valuable units away. However, you won’t stand still until the second turn, and you will have to change the position of your squads. But at the same time, you still have to keep in mind the prospect of deepstrike on the next turn. Adds exactly that tactical depth, which this edition lacks. In addition, this does not apply to the stratagems, which makes it possible to move squads closer to the enemy, making them more valuable. Still would be great if they returned a similar rule to droppods ...

Try playing a non-gunline army.

There's nothing "correct", or fair about this.

My army has to endure an entire round of shooting, just because some people were upset their enemy actually was able to use their troops and do something.

I'm sorry, but giving a free round of shooting, and allowing the "screen" units to advance an extra round before hand - it's that much further your deep strikers need to move before they can reach those juicy targets they really want.

Meanwhile, shooting continues, entirely un-penalized.

Every army will need to endure shooting. Mine will shoot back, then deep strike and assault and shoot more.

The Chicken Littles on the forum are making it funnier than I has been in quite sometime, do keep it up!

If you play an assault army you are SUPPOSED to endure at least one turn of fire, that aberration we played until now was just that, an aberration.

If you cannot endure a couple of turns of enemy fire without it crippling your army, then you made a mistake in designing the list, or there is a problematic model in the enemy army that needs fixing or he simply had the right counters.

Zothos wrote:
Every army will need to endure shooting. Mine will shoot back, then deep strike and assault and shoot more.

The Chicken Littles on the forum are making it funnier than I has been in quite sometime, do keep it up!

Well. some people just can see where real problems are. Some like to stick their head in sand and pretend there's no problem when game just took dive for worse in balance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
If you play an assault army you are SUPPOSED to endure at least one turn of fire, that aberration we played until now was just that, an aberration.

If you cannot endure a couple of turns of enemy fire without it crippling your army, then you made a mistake in designing the list, or there is a problematic model in the enemy army that needs fixing or he simply had the right counters.

You now eat up basically two turns.

You do realize right that any shooty army played by even semi-competent won't get crippled by T1 assault even by biggest offenders right? And that 90%+ T1 deep strike assault attempters aren't even that super good? Yey kommandos have less than 50% chance for T1 assault against cheap chaff! Whee! Such a broken cheese!

If you couldn't ensure you won't get crippled by turn 1 you need to look REAL hard at how you play because you played it horribly.

T2 was earliest you could hope to do meaningful charges. So if you went second you ate 2 rounds of fire. With now it's 3 rounds of fire then.

Where are your own shooting elements? Even an assault army needs 20-30% of shooting, because you have to neuter the worst offenders on your enemy list.

If you play a full assault army, understand that you are playing a skewed list and that full shooting with heavy screening is your counter. Don't worry though, such kind of lists have so many counters themselves that i wouldn't expect to find many in a competitive meta.

Spoletta wrote:
Where are your own shooting elements? Even an assault army needs 20-30% of shooting, because you have to neuter the worst offenders on your enemy list.

If you play a full assault army, understand that you are playing a skewed list and that full shooting with heavy screening is your counter. Don't worry though, such kind of lists have so many counters themselves that i wouldn't expect to find many in a competitive meta.

I totally agree with this post.

No army has zero shooting unless you choose to not take the shooting elements of the army because you don't like them or feel like they are underpowered.

But the armies that are great at shooting are typically poor in combat.

GW are trying to change the structure of the game to encourage Take All Comers lists. People ignoring this obvious steer need to realise that either now or in the future, you might not get to take your army's speciality and nothing else unless you are willing to be the scissors to someone else's rock.

Spoletta wrote:
Where are your own shooting elements? Even an assault army needs 20-30% of shooting, because you have to neuter the worst offenders on your enemy list.

If you play a full assault army, understand that you are playing a skewed list and that full shooting with heavy screening is your counter. Don't worry though, such kind of lists have so many counters themselves that i wouldn't expect to find many in a competitive meta.

Well right back at you: Where are your CC combat elements? Why does an AM gunline not run some CC only units?
It's the same reason: Taking just a few is often worse than not taking any. You split your armys focus and at any given time, part of your army is useless.

Placing just a few units on the table and have them enter a 2 round shootout with a full gunline means you just wasted those points.
If the gunline shoots first it will kill those units and then you have nothing to respond with.
Meanwhile if you get to shoot first, you do neglectable damage (because most of your points are in assault units) and then you lose those units anyways to return fire.

Having a balanced/take-all list is a nice concept, but it only works if both parts of that balanced lists are allowed to act at the same time.
If you first have your shooty part going up against a full gunline on its own and then later on your assaulty part has to go in without support, that will not end well. Yet, these rules enforce exactly that.
The game starts at turn 1.
And you do realize that the gunline is not a balanced army, right? It is the exact opposite of the spectrum, yet apparently THAT end is fine.

HMint wrote:
Well right back at you: Where are your CC combat elements? Why does an AM gunline not run some CC only units?

Most of them... do? If you run a pure gunline, your first turn of shooting will be a bit better, but then the enemy will get in amongst your tanks and start shutting them down. You need counter-assault elements to keep them off so your gunline can keep firing.

 kadeton wrote:

HMint wrote:
Well right back at you: Where are your CC combat elements? Why does an AM gunline not run some CC only units?

Most of them... do? If you run a pure gunline, your first turn of shooting will be a bit better, but then the enemy will get in amongst your tanks and start shutting them down. You need counter-assault elements to keep them off so your gunline can keep firing.

No, they do not.
Most shooting armys rely on falling back and then shooting some more to deal with CC threats.
At most, HQ units may be used as a CC counterattack, but that is because they happen to be good at it by chance. They are not taken as designated CC units for that reason.

The Deep Strike beta change is not bad per se, but it becomes a poor man's job when implemented alone and not alongside turn 1 shooting nerfs (like -1 to Hit when outside 12") AND points discounts for units that are mostly CQC or pay a premium price for Deepstrike (Mawloc comes to mind, he's totally useless as of now); also it feels like an artificial way to slow down the game and not something that naturally occurs via game mechanics.

Spoletta wrote:
Where are your own shooting elements? Even an assault army needs 20-30% of shooting, because you have to neuter the worst offenders on your enemy list.

If you play a full assault army, understand that you are playing a skewed list and that full shooting with heavy screening is your counter. Don't worry though, such kind of lists have so many counters themselves that i wouldn't expect to find many in a competitive meta.

My favorite army to play is Harlequins, i dont want to soup so i try to play Sure Harlequins.

Try playing Harlequins not Ynnari against some of these shooting lists.

People enjoying the fact others have been badly effected by this change is disgusting.

So, as someone who plays Tau with a heavy deepstriking element... also I play Tau so obviously I'm not playing CC...

People know how to deal with shooting armies. I don't know how it's uncommon to some, but I get first turn charges all the time. All you need is warptime, boom you have 12 berserkers beating your face in. Or just play against one of the like... every army in the game, that has a "Move + advance and still charge" thing. Or use your unit that has a 12-16" move.

So, I have to deal with this in every game. The fact that One of the like, 4 ways I can think of closing the gap is now null... Just isn't making me that upset. I mean people can mention screening units, but I already have a budget on points and t-shirt saves on a unit designed to eat a charge... you're basically just burning points you could save by effective placement and meaningful movement.

The change to alpha is a huge kick in the teeth for armies that rely on it, but then it's a huge boost for range. If I can't alpha a unit in to try and deal with dangerous threats at 48-72"... well, I guess I'll have to invest in some tanks that can.

Also there was a notable exception to all of this, Genestealer cults. That army just got exempt from these rules to help them stand out, and given it's already a nasty army that doesn't get nearly enough attention, that's huge for those players.

 kadeton wrote:

HMint wrote:
Well right back at you: Where are your CC combat elements? Why does an AM gunline not run some CC only units?

Most of them... do? If you run a pure gunline, your first turn of shooting will be a bit better, but then the enemy will get in amongst your tanks and start shutting them down. You need counter-assault elements to keep them off so your gunline can keep firing.

The enemy will be busy going through chaff that just steps back and allows you to shoot them back.

Shooty armies rarely even have anything that could be credible threat in cc to assault army. Yeah bullgryns can make short work of tactical marines. Whopedoo. So does bullgryns worth of guns. Meanwhile the truly scary h2h units will simply laugh off bullgryns.

And some 20% shooting from deepstrike assault army is just shrugged off by gunline that first blows them(if they get first turn bye bye your shooty elements) and then proceeds to shoot apart your assault elements.

GW has made 40k so that it actively encourages to go AWAY from TAC. With TAC you are diluting yourself allowing enemy to destroy you piece meal. goes for shooty/assault, goes for unit type. If you take infantry you don't take little of it. You take lots. If you want to take vehicles 1-2 vehicles is about worst you can take. You need to have lots of them. Otherwise you are diluting your army too much making you easy to beat.

hobojebus wrote:
People enjoying the fact others have been badly effected by this change is disgusting.

I agree and some others are trying to dismiss any worries as cry babies, idiots or worse insults.

Ash87 wrote:
So, as someone who plays Tau with a heavy deepstriking element... also I play Tau so obviously I'm not playing CC...

People know how to deal with shooting armies. I don't know how it's uncommon to some, but I get first turn charges all the time. All you need is warptime, boom you have 12 berserkers beating your face in. Or just play against one of the like... every army in the game, that has a "Move + advance and still charge" thing. Or use your unit that has a 12-16" move.

Yeah well I hope you aren't giving 1st turn chargers anything worthwhile to charge first up.

Very few 1st turn charging units are actually really that big of a problem. There's few but most who can are still fishing that 9" on 2d6" with maybe reroll(which btw still makes it <50% chance). Even blood angels 3d6" charge doesn't make it somehow unbeatable monster.

1st turn assaults weren't problem. Problem was more of units like scions. But hurting them GW hurt more other units so net result is gain for IG.

HMint wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Where are your own shooting elements? Even an assault army needs 20-30% of shooting, because you have to neuter the worst offenders on your enemy list.

If you play a full assault army, understand that you are playing a skewed list and that full shooting with heavy screening is your counter. Don't worry though, such kind of lists have so many counters themselves that i wouldn't expect to find many in a competitive meta.

Well right back at you: Where are your CC combat elements? Why does an AM gunline not run some CC only units?
It's the same reason: Taking just a few is often worse than not taking any. You split your armys focus and at any given time, part of your army is useless.

Placing just a few units on the table and have them enter a 2 round shootout with a full gunline means you just wasted those points.
If the gunline shoots first it will kill those units and then you have nothing to respond with.
Meanwhile if you get to shoot first, you do neglectable damage (because most of your points are in assault units) and then you lose those units anyways to return fire.

Having a balanced/take-all list is a nice concept, but it only works if both parts of that balanced lists are allowed to act at the same time.
If you first have your shooty part going up against a full gunline on its own and then later on your assaulty part has to go in without support, that will not end well. Yet, these rules enforce exactly that.
The game starts at turn 1.
And you do realize that the gunline is not a balanced army, right? It is the exact opposite of the spectrum, yet apparently THAT end is fine.

You are not making any sense.

1) The list you are talking about has a screen, so by definition does have CC elements, because screens are a CC element
2) With shooting elements, the lesser you have the better they are, because they have better targets and better positions. A single predator in cover is a trouble for your opponent that far exceeds it's point cost, because it takes almost the full power of his army to remove one (seriously, do the math it requires the focused fire of 5 manticores), but take 3 of them and you have wasted points. An entrenched shooting element is needed exactly for this, it diverts the attention from your assault elements, and requires more firepower to be removed compared to an equivalent number of CC elements.
3) Gunline armies are an unbalanced army, I clearly said so, stop ignoring people's words. I also said that they are not competitive, because since they are a skewed list, they have too many counters.

I run dedicated CC in my Gunline army?

Celestine, Cannoness, Colonel Straken, Priest, Catachan Guardsmen, Rough Riders...

I've played 5 matches with the new rules since they dropped and I have to say it's been some of the most balanced fun I've seen this edition.

Most of the complainers are just folks who never get out and play actual games, hopefully GW is aware of this phenomena when responding to complaints in emails or on social media.

LoyalGuardsman69 wrote:
I've played 5 matches with the new rules since they dropped and I have to say it's been some of the most balanced fun I've seen this edition.

Most of the complainers are just folks who never get out and play actual games, hopefully GW is aware of this phenomena when responding to complaints in emails or on social media.

"Loyalguardsman" lol, IG player spotted. Of course you see your games as most balanced in a while, you just received hefty buffs!

I'm not massively experienced when it comes to 8th Ed, but my wider gaming group are, and regularly partake and place well in Tournaments.

The changes haven't affected my Necron army, other than to bag me 2 additional CP. And it hasn't made me want to look at it's current composition.

The guys? Well, only one has had to do a major re-work, and that's with his Chaos Daemons, and due to the 3 rule. So far as I know it's not a full-on re-write, but of course he may spot changes to synergy and go further than swap a unit out.

And that's it. Nobody else has been particularly affected by it in terms of army composition.

That to me suggests they've at least got something right. If the FAQ lead to widespread 'so my army isn't legal anymore', I'd say they've gone too far.

But tweaking how Soup works? Preventing Spam? That to me is only really going to hit WAAC spammers, and a few unlucky sods with curiously themed armies. Anyone who sets out to craft their list to take advantage of the vagaries should expect this, that sooner or later that's just not gonna work anymore, either through new codex, or FAQ/Eratta. I have no sympathy for them, as they're usually a completely joyless opponent in my experience.

I think the changes to deep strike is the rule that made the most impact from the faq. I think it's a good change. Deep strike round one was mostly new for 8th and made it almost a no brainer. Now there is actually a proper disadvantage along with all the advantages. Using reserves should be for a patient player, not a "in your face on round one" play.

I think people need to play with it before dismissing it, honestly. There is a lot of bitching and salt about "gunlinehammer" and such, let's see how it plays out first?

Spoletta wrote:
If you play an assault army you are SUPPOSED to endure at least one turn of fire, that aberration we played until now was just that, an aberration.

If you cannot endure a couple of turns of enemy fire without it crippling your army, then you made a mistake in designing the list, or there is a problematic model in the enemy army that needs fixing or he simply had the right counters.

This is 8th ed. If you haven’t lost most your list by turn 2’s end then your opponent messed up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My grey Knights are dead, and my tau have yet another reason to not run crisis suits. I guess I’ll just put in another riptide and call it a day. =T

My scions and inquisition army also is not legal anymore and can’t do any shooting turn 1...

My drop pod shooty space marine army also is messed up. My poor vets with plasma have gone from bad to horrible. I spose that’s what I get for not running a robot gorilla man gunline.

Drop pods really should be like 35 points now. This change really made them useless. Also, anything that pays for deep strike should get a price drop. At this point deep strike really is a trade off, not a benefit. Honestly, why pay for deep strike when you could have something shoot on turn one?