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The new weapon scatter rolls are also fairly elegant.

The scatter distance is double what you rolled on the 'to hit' roll, so in essence a high BS still reduces the possible scatter.

Evasion modifiers aside, BS4 can only scatter 2" or 4" because a roll of 3 or more is a hit, anyway. BS2 could scatter up to 8" if you rolled a 4 to hit.

The book doesn't say this, but personally I would suggest rolling the scatter die and to hit die together to speed things up.

Am I reading this right ... Swarms are immune to instant death? Unless the weapon states that it causes instant death (2) ... Meaning that normal double toughness wounds do nothing to swarms anymore?!?

Sorry if this has been covered.

Firstly, I was quite happy to see that the rules largely fit with the edition rumour pile that was sitting here on dakka (suspiciously ignored, considering how fleshed out it was). As such, I'd already had knowledge of about 80% of the basics we see here, so only a few, amazing shocks.

The variable BS is very interesting, and not actually that hard to use. Just use as normal, and add modifiers (Orks need 5+, -1 for A, -1 for B, +1 for C, etc). I'm just happy that my Orks will be hitting vehicles on 3+'s now. Tankbustas are happy

In general, it seems to make targets on the lower end of the evasion spectrum easier to hit for everyone, but everything on the higher end of the spectrum even harder to hit. Flat out fast skimmers make up for their lack of cover save with needing 6's to hit irregardless of modifiers.

Preferred enemy is INSANE, though, wow. Plus the fact that, if I read it correctly, blasts now only scatter if you miss your BS roll.

Lots of things frighten me initially, but I also see that digging in deeper alleviates most of those fears: My Orks still being able to attack once they get out of their trukks, for example.

KFF got sucker punched, 5+ for everything, even more painful after the relatively recent FAQ green lit the 4+ argument, though I can see why it would do it now. Actually, I'd like to see more fleshed out Codex Amendments in general, the ones supplied don't really seem that sufficient. Considering how easier it is going to be to hit vehicles, I'm a tad worried.

Directed Wounds are thankfully rare it seems (since the initial rumours did not imply that they were a limited ability), but still, as an Ork player, my Nobs are sweating bullets.

Kharrak wrote:irregardless

Irregardless is not a word.

Yes, to ID a swarm you need a weapon that specificly does ID(2) or ID (3).

Fafnir wrote:

Kharrak wrote:irregardless

Irregardless is not a word.

That's unpossible.

Clay Williams wrote:Am I reading this right ... Swarms are immune to instant death? Unless the weapon states that it causes instant death (2) ... Meaning that normal double toughness wounds do nothing to swarms anymore?!?

Sorry if this has been covered.

They're not immune, but they resist most ID effects. ID (2) and ID (3) can still hurt them badly.
As an aside we are all going to really need to get a newer set of acronyms for these abilities.

Fluffwise, it makes sense too. If a horde of rippers is heading towards me and I shoot a lascannon, I'm going to gigastomp that one individual ripper, but the swarm itself shouldn't all explode. You need blast weapons for that.

Fafnir wrote:

Kharrak wrote:irregardless

Irregardless is not a word.

Yes it is. Welcome to the evolution of language.

It may not be 'proper' or 'correct' in all uses, but it's still a word.

Kharrak wrote:Directed Wounds are thankfully rare it seems (since the initial rumours did not imply that they were a limited ability), but still, as an Ork player, my Nobs are sweating bullets.

Somewhat. Any unit with a character in it can get a limited form of directed hits:

Covering Fire
Model Type: Shooting, Disembarked

In the thick of battle it is hard to find the respite
to land a pinpoint shot. A shrewd leader
commands his squad to lay down a torrent of
covering fire to buy the time needed for the
heavy weapons to take aim.
One character in a unit can perform this action
when the unit shoots but before you roll to hit.
The character orders his squad to fire in a
coordinated fashion. Note that the character
cannot fire a weapon of its own, as Covering fire
uses up his one allowed Shooting action.
Roll to hit as normal for the whole unit, even with
weapons that cannot damage the target. If the
unit rolls at least three results of 6, the unit has
laid down enough covering fire to grant one
marksman a clear shot. You can choose one hit to
be a Directed Hit before you proceed with the
rolls to wound. This doesn’t have to be one of the
hits with a result of 6. The normal restrictions for
Directed Shots apply. You cannot score directed
hits if the unit fires through an intervening unit,
for example.

Blast, Template and Rail weapons
Every blast, rail and template weapon that hits at
least one model in the target unit counts as as if it
had rolled a 6 on its to hit dice for the purpose of
this rule. These weapons are good in laying down
covering fire but are rather indiscriminate when it
comes to causing actual damage. You cannot
choose a hit from any of these weapons to be a
directed (as usual).

Clay Williams wrote:Am I reading this right ... Swarms are immune to instant death? Unless the weapon states that it causes instant death (2) ... Meaning that normal double toughness wounds do nothing to swarms anymore?!?

Sorry if this has been covered.

instant death totally goes off of how much strength over the model's toughness...so you can get instant death 2 off of a swarm with t3, with strength 7.... not to mention that swarms auto suffer instant death 2, to wounds from templates and blasts...


so you can still absolutely wreck swarms easily...though they are afforded SOME extra resistance.

MasterSlowPoke wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:
-The ability to deep strike Deathmarks in response to your opponent bringing units in from reserve now makes perfect sense with these new rules.

How, exactly? Does something give them defensive fire?

Some missions will be you-move-I-move-you-assault-I-assault-you-shoot-I-shoot as per below:

Turn order
The order in which units fight during a game cycle
can vary quite drastically. In some missions a unit
takes its turn alone and units of both sides
alternate until all units have moved. In other
missions a part of the player’s units take their turn
together. The units may be grouped together
based on their position on the battlefield, their
effectiveness in their last turn or by the player’s
choice. If more than two players take part in the
game, the turn order becomes even more
important. However, the most standard way a
Warhammer 40,000 battle is fought is by two
players who each fight with all their units in a
single turn as described below.
Standard turn order
In the overwhelming number of games with two
players, the units act in standard turn order. In a
complete game cycle, both players get a turn,
during which they perform the actions of all their
units in the appropriate phases – the Movement,
Assault and Shooting and Consolidation phases to
be precise. Exactly what happens in each phase is
described later. Hence one game cycle will
normally comprise two turns.

Fafnir wrote:

Kharrak wrote:irregardless

Irregardless is not a word.

You are awesome. I'm not being sarcastic.

"irregardless, that's not even a real word. your affixing the negative prefix ir to regardless but as regardless is already a negative it's a logical absurdity"

* lol it's an american dad quote... calm down everyone

Fafnir wrote:

Kharrak wrote:irregardless

Irregardless is not a word.

Technically it is, but resent that fact, and feel that it shouldn't be. Please don't use that word.

Revarien wrote:

Clay Williams wrote:Am I reading this right ... Swarms are immune to instant death? Unless the weapon states that it causes instant death (2) ... Meaning that normal double toughness wounds do nothing to swarms anymore?!?

Sorry if this has been covered.

instant death totally goes off of how much strength over the model's toughness...so you can get instant death 2 off of a swarm with t3, with strength 7.... not to mention that swarms auto suffer instant death 2, to wounds from templates and blasts...


so you can still absolutely wreck swarms easily...though they are afforded SOME extra resistance.

No it doesn't. There are no rules that support this.
If a weapon's strength is double, triple, or a kabadrillion times the strength of a swarm, it still only deals 1 wound unless the weapon explicitly states it has Instant Death (2).

Strength over Double Toughness only determines how many extra wounds are dealt, not what layer of Eternal Warrior is circumvented.

Well, of this leaked codex I can only say this…
If it’s a real play test codex, then I am very concerned about the realm the game is headed too. Not that I think any of the new stats are good or bad, they are simply different, but simply because it seems to play a “real” game of Warhammer is going to take about 3 hours, most of which is spent looking up various special rules and determining if whether or not this action is free or if this one is compulsory.
This “rulebook” almost specifically reminds me of the 2nd edition rule book. There is a lot of writing in here that specifically mentions other units, like titans and other models, but doesn’t give a frame of reference. Additionally, I’m not sold this is a real rule book because there is no fluff, and the wording is, for lack of a better phrase, off.

I know that certainly doesn’t sound like legitimate reasons as to why I don’t think it’s real, but if this playtest book went as far as to include a special section for notes to older players, why didn’t it have the fluff or at least the cut outs for it. Typically, in the gaming industry, there are production levels to “test” books. If a test book is designed to provide rules only, it normally doesn’t have anything in the book like “notes to players” and goofy commentary about what a “proper fight” is or what a splendid idea playing more games are. They are typically included in the book as an editing/marketing tool to provide a specific frame of reference. When the marketing and editorial team is finally ready to add all of the fluff, like the letter from the CEO/Designer, or the notes to the players, its typically done at the same time when the rest of the book is being paginated. Typically these types of topical discussion don’t normally show up when the book is still in rules development stages. Also, if the marketing and design teams are looking at the document to add pictures and diagrams, the fluff would be added too, or at a minimum, a separate section and side note box would be added or space to be set aside for all of the little text boxes that we take for granted. Additionally, when speaking about evasion value, the author does speak about how this isn’t really a “new stat” and doesn’t change the complexity of the game, but then later, when in the shooting section, does seem to contradict himself a little with verbiage like “comparing your ballistic skill with the targets EV score”. Just seems off to me.

The last reason why I think this is a fandex, and not a codex or rule book is because this thing is, as previously mentioned, almost specifically taken from, and almost in the same order of, the old 2nd edition “Codex Imperialis”, “Rulebook”, and the old yellow covered “Wargear” book. Additionally, many mechanics that games workshop has repeatedly shot down, like multiple levels of psychology have now been mysteriously included, and Over-watch has been missing as a game element for 16+ years now because it had a tendency to stop or slow down the game, and make it unnecessarily complex. While I don’t put it past GW to change up the game, the thought of having [skill] then [skill+1] and finally [skill+2] rules seems pretty silly and unnecessarily complex, and given GW’s stance on simplifying the game, and making it quicker and bringing a stronger focus on tournament play, I cannot help but seriously doubt the legitimacy of this document.
My thoughts are simple, this thing reads like a D&D 5th edition manual having sex with a used up copy of the second edition rule book with some fancy new jargon thrown around.

If it is the new direction of the game, I will probably pay “simple” 40k and not bother with an unnecessarily drawn out gaming experience when it already takes long enough to play one game, let alone multiples. If it’s not, then I am none the worse off and we all get a laugh out of it.

What a constructive conversation with a complete disirregard* for the topic at hand.







*that was intentional.

Revarien wrote:

Clay Williams wrote:Am I reading this right ... Swarms are immune to instant death? Unless the weapon states that it causes instant death (2) ... Meaning that normal double toughness wounds do nothing to swarms anymore?!?

Sorry if this has been covered.

instant death totally goes off of how much strength over the model's toughness...so you can get instant death 2 off of a swarm with t3, with strength 7.... not to mention that swarms auto suffer instant death 2, to wounds from templates and blasts...


so you can still absolutely wreck swarms easily...though they are afforded SOME extra resistance.

No, EW(1) completely negates ID caused from high Str weapons. A weapon who's Str is 5 points higher than the target's toughness does not cause ID(2). It is ID(1) but removes 2 wounds in essence.

Revarien wrote:
instant death totally goes off of how much strength over the model's toughness...so you can get instant death 2 off of a swarm with t3, with strength 7....

I don't think that's how it works. The number after the rule has no bearing on how many wounds it causes, just on what level of Eternal Warrior it beats.

A S9 lascannon firing at a T3 swarm would technically cause 3 extra wounds, but this doesn't make it Instant Death (3), it's still Instant Death (1) and is ignored because the swarm has Eternal Warrior (1).


Templates and Blasts cause Instant Death (2) against a swarm, meaning they deal at least +1 wound regardless of S and T (possibly more if the S is high enough) and ignore Eternal Warrior (1).


(multi-ninja'd)

plus tau got a big boost with the new "rail weapon" rules. only thing im having trouble with though is the levels of special rules. hopefully those get explained more clearly. also, im assuming that multi targeting is the number of weapons a unit can fire?

also....in the codex rules, vects dias gains aireal assault! that makes his dias much more of a competetive option.... a 4th ravager with AV 13 and carrys 10 models? = NICE

Sc077y wrote:My thoughts are simple, this thing reads like a D&D 5th edition manual having sex with a used up copy of the second edition rule book with some fancy new jargon thrown around

D&D 5th Edition isn't even out yet...

...unless you have a leaked copy.


Irregardless*, the game has been made faster. There are much more things getting hit, there are many more saves being failed, and things are much less survivable. We got options, and that's a good thing.
Rather than spending an entire 3hr playing a game of 5th edition with no tactical thought required, this new edition promises 3hr for newbies or 2hr for experienced players... all the with added innovation of tactical choice.

Innovative that the player actually matters rather than just the army list now.

*I Intentionally used that word in order to annoy people who live in the past.

Sc077y wrote:Well, of this leaked codex I can only say this…<snip>

While this ruleset adds some new mechanics, most of the "new" special rules are just simplifying and consolidating rules that are already scattered around the dexes, in turn actually reducing a lot of the complexity and confusion of the game in that regard.

I always love the "It cannot be real because it would take you 3 hours to look up special rules" argument.

I guess these are the people who read the 5th Edition rulebook in one sitting and then played every game without ever looking at a rule again...

also.... just noticed this wound allocation games get messed up and nerfed big time. the "recover phase" requires wounded models to loose wounds to heal other wounded models at the end of the turn. so no more blobs of multi wound wound allocated units running around with 1 wound on each. the save dispersion and such still works though...so its not all bad?

If this rulebook is guilty of anything it's having the rules presented in a scattershot manner, with too many things that just say 'Refer to page XX' for these rules.

So in other words it's like every other current GW book.

Maelstrom808 wrote:

Sc077y wrote:Well, of this leaked codex I can only say this…<snip>

While this ruleset adds some new mechanics, most of the "new" special rules are just simplifying and consolidating rules that are already scattered around the dexes, in turn actually reducing a lot of the complexity and confusion of the game in that regard.

I think another reason why there are so many special rules in the main rulebook is the need to consolidate and update codexes. If they were able to print a new rulebook and all the codices at the same time I would expect that half of these special rules would end up being printed in the codex instead.

H.B.M.C. wrote:What a constructive conversation with a complete disirregard* for the topic at hand.







*that was intentional.

It's a pet peeve. And by "pet peeve," I mean "I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and beat you to a bloody pulp with the keyboard that you are entirely unqualified to have in your possession if you use that 'word' again."

d-usa wrote:
I think another reason why there are so many special rules in the main rulebook is the need to consolidate and update codexes.

And it turns the entire rulebook into a horrible mess in order to save GW the effort of updating some books that will likely (along with their rules in the rulebook) be replaced entirely within the same generation.

H.B.M.C. wrote:If this rulebook is guilty of anything it's having the rules presented in a scattershot manner, with too many things that just say 'Refer to page XX' for these rules.

So in other words it's like every other current GW book.

If only GW acknowledged that computers existed and put out a hyperlinked pdf version...

DarthSpader wrote:plus tau got a big boost with the new "rail weapon" rules. only thing im having trouble with though is the levels of special rules. hopefully those get explained more clearly. also, im assuming that multi targeting is the number of weapons a unit can fire?

Multi-targeting is the number of shooting actions a model gets. Now you can use those actions to fire more than one weapon, or you can spend them to do other things, like fire at more than one target (if you can fire two weapons)

Holy get a load of this:

Monolith: Heavy, Tank

Heavy: a super-heavy classification with (1) structure point, meaning a -3 on the vehicle damage table until a natural 6 is rolled

Living Metal: 3+ roll to negate a Shaken result, 4+ roll to negate a Stunned result, meaning the Monolith has a 3+ or 4+ against everything except a natural 6 on the vehicle damage table

Damage Control: all super-heavies have a built-in 4+ repair of a stunned, shaken, weapon destroyed or immobilized result

Behemoth: tanks with a front armour of 14 always have this rule which confers multi-targeting (3)

Ordnance: To represent this, a model must perform two Heavy Fire actions to fire a single ordnance weapon. Well, the Monolith has Multi-targeting (3), but the Monolith always counts as stationary so the multi-targeting is doubled, meaning it can fire the Particle Whip and four other weapons every turn, even if it moved. Or it can use 1 of those 6 actions to divide fire, as below:

For example: A stationary tank with multitargeting
(2) can fire four weapons on a single
target or fire three weapons on different targets.

And since there is no more Deep Strike Mishap Table, my Monoliths are coming in right on top of your army. Good times had by all.

Absolutionis wrote:

Sc077y wrote:My thoughts are simple, this thing reads like a D&D 5th edition manual having sex with a used up copy of the second edition rule book with some fancy new jargon thrown around

D&D 5th Edition isn't even out yet...

...unless you have a leaked copy.


Irregardless*, the game has been made faster. There are much more things getting hit, there are many more saves being failed, and things are much less survivable. We got options, and that's a good thing.
Rather than spending an entire 3hr playing a game of 5th edition with no tactical thought required, this new edition promises 3hr for newbies or 2hr for experienced players... all the with added innovation of tactical choice.

Innovative that the player actually matters rather than just the army list now.

*I Intentionally used that word in order to annoy people who live in the past.

Sorry, I don’t actually play DND, so i have no idea what version is out, but the point remains.

I don’t think unnecessarily complicating a game adds tactical depth to a game, and maybe that’s what I don’t understand, or I am not delineating from this information. sure, over watch would be cool, and maybe the modified turn sequence would certainly spice things up, but one of the most in depth games I have every played is called war in the east, and it has little die rolling and almost no special rules. What makes it great is that it presents the players with the ability to make decisions based on probable outcome and chance, something Warhammer 40k has always done, although to a much smaller degree when compared to games like War in the East, Stalingrad, Neuroshima Hex, or even Axis and Allies.

Point is, I am not certain that new rules and levels of special abilities really help the game? Do you want to look up the instant death rules vs. someone with eternal warrior X2 now, when it could just be easy? If you do, that’s fine and it ultimately is your call, we all like different things, but for me, I don’t see where adding that makes the game anymore tactical, it just makes it take longer.

DarthSpader wrote:also....in the codex rules, vects dias gains aireal assault! that makes his dias much more of a competetive option.... a 4th ravager with AV 13 and carrys 10 models? = NICE

It's not really a competitive option per se, since you have to buy not only Vect and the ravager, but also the 9-man retinue into it. It's very much an eggbasket.