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Hey folks, I peaced-out when my local group decided 6th was getting way too fiddly on rules around wound resolution, hero challenges, etc. and was bogging down the pace of the game to something we didn't want to play. Other gaming friends on the internet told me a couple years back that 8th was a nice, clean ruleset, which is great. I poked my head in long enough to see that Sisters (Codex Witch Hunters was my first army and most sentimental/built out force) were actually going to come out in plastic someday, and decided to hold off.

Well, plastic Sororitas are upon us, I have a lovely box in hand, and I've talked my buddies into dipping our toes in with Kill Team first to see how we like the new paradigm. I was able to talk with my FLGS to get the basic rundown on "hey, the story's moving forward again" and I'm here for that, too. But returning from being away for a while, I see a lot of product and little guidance on what I ought to be clued into for friendly casual pick-up play.

So, to start: I picked up the 8th Big Book to help catch me up on advancing fluff and figure out what the deal is with Primaris and new Eldar crazy schemes. I've gathered that the Kill Team Annual 2019 that's due out in a couple weeks is going to have the Kill Team datasheets for my Sisters, so I've got that coming in. I have the Adepta Sororitas Codex that came with my "Hallelujah, Sisters!" box. I've gathered that there are important errata for the Matched Play (I'm casual, but not "power level" casual, I suspect) in the core rules, and have located them.

So my question to you, the reader, is: What else do I need? I take it the Chapter Approved Annual books replace the Matched Play missions? How much difference will the updated missions make in my list-building considerations if that's all anybody locally plays? Should I bother picking up one of the CA 2018 copies at my store, or will they be superceded by a 2019 soon?

I see people still talking about Repressors, which pleases me because I've got some lovely models I'd love to finish painting; but I have no idea where the rules are -- where do I find those?

Psychic Awakening -- I get that they're two books that introduce new stuff cross-faction; obviously they don't feature Sisters stuff yet, but when the next incarnation of the "story advancement and rules multi-factional" book comes out, am I just sort of locked into a few book releases a year to get rules for my army? If so, yikes.

Finally, regarding my side project when I quit -- I was working on a bike marines force for a White Scars successor. With the advent of Primaris across all the Astartes chapters, what's the forecast on bikes? Is it still well-supported with characters and generic HQs on bikes? Are bikes-as-troops options still around? If so, what codices and/or supplements am I looking at to get there? (I'm not above converting to DA rules in principle if it seems like the future for bikes lays in the Ravenguard) My understanding is that Chapter Supplements are relatively rules-slim, and most of the content is fluff -- not that there's anything wrong about that, but with the reigning paradigm being shrink-wrapped books, it makes it hard to assess from the outside: If I'm building a successor chapter to a Supplement First Founding chapter, do I get any benefit from the supplement book, or is it all named characters I'm not gonna want to use?

Kaffis wrote:
Psychic Awakening -- I get that they're two books that introduce new stuff cross-faction; obviously they don't feature Sisters stuff yet, but when the next incarnation of the "story advancement and rules multi-factional" book comes out, am I just sort of locked into a few book releases a year to get rules for my army? If so, yikes.

In a word, yes.

Don't buy CA18 and wait for GW to fix CA19 before buying (apparently the big book of errata needs errata).

There are, at the time of writing, One Hundred and Forty Two rules documents for 8th edition. So much for less rules bloat, eh?

Repressors are found in the Imperial Armour Index - Forces of the Adeptus Astartes (for some reason).

ok, first off regarding sisters of battle, sisters are, essentially a brand new army having not even had their plastic release wave (those are in january) so they don't have a buncha supplements. so in terms of what you want for your core army the only additional thing you need is chapter approved 2019 (it's not 100% needed but it'll have some good missions etc in it, collect the point values for everything etc. I reccomend it) so... sounds like you're on top of things there.


regarding white scars space Marines.... things get a liiitle more complex.

first of all bike characters are.... in a odd place, captains on bikes are still a thing, but librarians, chaplains and vetern squads on bikes have now been moved to Legends. which is a perfectly legit source of rules and 100% supported, just don't expect updates, points changes etc, as GW is no longer factoring them into the game in terms of testing, they're legacy rules. the plus side is they're free, the down side is that GW is advising against uising them for tournies so expect most tournies to ban them, still it's over all a plsu for you if you're just a handful of guys playing in your garage.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/8243d6f9.pdf there's the link

moving on beyond that you can play with just codex space marines, but only get your FULL chapter rules with the white scars supplement in addition. and yes sucessor chapters can ABSOLUTELY use the supplements, and create some fun combos (we now have "create a sucessor chapter" rules BTW)

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There are, at the time of writing, One Hundred and Forty Two rules documents for 8th edition. So much for less rules bloat, eh?

Repressors are found in the Imperial Armour Index - Forces of the Adeptus Astartes (for some reason).

Hmm. Fortunately, I'm a filthy casual that is okay with other people telling me what their fancy new thing does, so hopefully I can skip several of those. Oof. Also, did I see something about datasheets coming in the box with units? That probably helps alleviate the "buy a book for 2 new characters" thing if I don't want the book for the fluff, yeah?

As for why the Repressor goes with the Astartes Index, perhaps because it's a Rhino variant?

L

BrianDavion wrote:
ok, first off regarding sisters of battle, sisters are, essentially a brand new army having not even had their plastic release wave (those are in january) so they don't have a buncha supplements. so in terms of what you want for your core army the only additional thing you need is chapter approved 2019 (it's not 100% needed but it'll have some good missions etc in it, collect the point values for everything etc. I reccomend it) so... sounds like you're on top of things there.


regarding white scars space Marines.... things get a liiitle more complex.

first of all bike characters are.... in a odd place, captains on bikes are still a thing, but librarians, chaplains and vetern squads on bikes have now been moved to Legends. which is a perfectly legit source of rules and 100% supported, just don't expect updates, points changes etc, as GW is no longer factoring them into the game in terms of testing, they're legacy rules. the plus side is they're free, the down side is that GW is advising against uising them for tournies so expect most tournies to ban them, still it's over all a plsu for you if you're just a handful of guys playing in your garage.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/8243d6f9.pdf there's the link

moving on beyond that you can play with just codex space marines, but only get your FULL chapter rules with the white scars supplement in addition. and yes sucessor chapters can ABSOLUTELY use the supplements, and create some fun combos (we now have "create a sucessor chapter" rules BTW)

Cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the January release because I'll totally take a few new STC pattern vehicles into my ranks.

And thanks for the insight on Scars and supplements.

Kaffis wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
ok, first off regarding sisters of battle, sisters are, essentially a brand new army having not even had their plastic release wave (those are in january) so they don't have a buncha supplements. so in terms of what you want for your core army the only additional thing you need is chapter approved 2019 (it's not 100% needed but it'll have some good missions etc in it, collect the point values for everything etc. I reccomend it) so... sounds like you're on top of things there.


regarding white scars space Marines.... things get a liiitle more complex.

first of all bike characters are.... in a odd place, captains on bikes are still a thing, but librarians, chaplains and vetern squads on bikes have now been moved to Legends. which is a perfectly legit source of rules and 100% supported, just don't expect updates, points changes etc, as GW is no longer factoring them into the game in terms of testing, they're legacy rules. the plus side is they're free, the down side is that GW is advising against uising them for tournies so expect most tournies to ban them, still it's over all a plsu for you if you're just a handful of guys playing in your garage.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/8243d6f9.pdf there's the link

moving on beyond that you can play with just codex space marines, but only get your FULL chapter rules with the white scars supplement in addition. and yes sucessor chapters can ABSOLUTELY use the supplements, and create some fun combos (we now have "create a sucessor chapter" rules BTW)

Cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the January release because I'll totally take a few new STC pattern vehicles into my ranks.

And thanks for the insight on Scars and supplements.

no problem, over all people looking to play a unique chapter on the battlefield and FEEL unique are in the best place they've been in ages

BrianDavion wrote:
no problem, over all people looking to play a unique chapter on the battlefield and FEEL unique are in the best place they've been in ages

At the same time, I'm *super* stoked for the Orders Minoris we got in the Sororitas codex. I've never painted a canon chapter, so I'm thinking my new Sisters models might just have to be a canon Order Minoris, now. Considering there were only 6 canon color schemes for the last, what, 22 years?, it seems like something to celebrate.

Kaffis wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
no problem, over all people looking to play a unique chapter on the battlefield and FEEL unique are in the best place they've been in ages

At the same time, I'm *super* stoked for the Orders Minoris we got in the Sororitas codex. I've never painted a canon chapter, so I'm thinking my new Sisters models might just have to be a canon Order Minoris, now. Considering there were only 6 canon color schemes for the last, what, 22 years?, it seems like something to celebrate.

yeah, Ive fingers crossed that a future pyskic awakening book will give us a "create an order" rulesset

Question: are characters that change force org slots essentially (or even completely?) gone? I notice that bike captains no longer make any mention of such things. Is the thinking that former bike-only, or jump pack-only armies just run multiple outrider detachments and don't get to have a lot of CP to play with?

So, lacking other codices, are Ravenwing, Deathwing, Saim-Hann, etc in similar boats?

Kaffis wrote:
Question: are characters that change force org slots essentially (or even completely?) gone? I notice that bike captains no longer make any mention of such things. Is the thinking that former bike-only, or jump pack-only armies just run multiple outrider detachments and don't get to have a lot of CP to play with?

So, lacking other codices, are Ravenwing, Deathwing, Saim-Hann, etc in similar boats?

Yes, they are totally gone.

Yes, this means that you can't have Biker Troops anymore.

Yes, this means you lose out on 5 times the CP unless you take filler Troops.

Yes, this leads to a proliferation of cheap Battery Battalions to farm CP.

Stupid thing to mention but you say you're going to start with Kill Team. You, or one of your group, at least, will need the core rules book for that. Maybe the Elites expansion too, but the core rules and annual should cover you for Sisters.

craggy wrote:
Stupid thing to mention but you say you're going to start with Kill Team. You, or one of your group, at least, will need the core rules book for that. Maybe the Elites expansion too, but the core rules and annual should cover you for Sisters.

Thanks. I forgot to mention I'd already gotten the Kill Team core book, so I'm with you.

What's the nature of the Elites and Commanders books? New units for the existing-at-the-time factions, or new rules to support them, too?

Also, looking at various things in the Kill Team 2019 book, it looks like some units are pretty pricey -- did some book or supplement introduce bigger points limits?

Kaffis wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There are, at the time of writing, One Hundred and Forty Two rules documents for 8th edition. So much for less rules bloat, eh?

Repressors are found in the Imperial Armour Index - Forces of the Adeptus Astartes (for some reason).

Hmm. Fortunately, I'm a filthy casual that is okay with other people telling me what their fancy new thing does, so hopefully I can skip several of those. Oof.

You can skip 99.9% of the these because it's hyperbolic nonsense made up by people with axe to grind against GW. FAQ adds one sentence at the end of Space Marines FAQ? +1 to count, even thought it's the exact same file superseding old one. Points change? +1 to count for 2017 points change, +1 for 2018 one, +1 for 2019 one, times two if spring FAQ changes something, times three for Fall one, even if all you need is the latest point change (CA 2019) which explicitly makes all past ones obsolete (but +whatever made up number stays, of course). Intercessors get added weapon options one by one as GW adds upgrade sprues? +14 to count even if all you need is latest sheet, because we need to spread FUD etc, etc.

By that standard 7th edition came with 48575689038584905 """rules documents""" because all boxes had rules for units, tons of boxes had optional formations, a lot them also had decurions, but all of this was also found in Codex and anyone who would try to argue Codex counts as 8573957589 ""rules documents"" because you had these in a lot of other places too would be at best dishonest.

Regarding your Space Marines - all you need is Codex: SM. Period. If you want bike characters, these are in free Legends PDF. I'd only get supplement White Scars if you want to run Korsarro or need WS relics/stratagems, but it's optional extra. Also, small suggestion, since you can now build your own chapter, take a look at other supplements (in Wahapedia, for one), even if they are Scar successors in fluff you might want to use rules of another supplement. Still, I'd just get codex, have a few games to get a handle on rules, then start worrying about supplements, these are bonus, not mandatory thing.

Chapter Approved Annual books don't replace Matched Play missions, these are bonus, optional stuff too. Better than the original ones, IMO, but again, they are not mandatory and if your opponent wants to play these you can simply ask him to show you that page.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Yes, this means that you can't have Biker Troops anymore.

Yes, this means you lose out on 5 times the CP unless you take filler Troops.

Yes, this leads to a proliferation of cheap Battery Battalions to farm CP.

Having not gotten around to reading all the missions yet, are troops required or advantaged in scoring some missions? Only troops can claim control points but others can contest, troops count double for controlling, etc?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Irbis wrote:
Chapter Approved Annual books don't replace Matched Play missions, these are bonus, optional stuff too. Better than the original ones, IMO, but again, they are not mandatory and if your opponent wants to play these you can simply ask him to show you that page.

Thanks for the insight. I got a chance to flip through a White Scars supplement the other day, so I've got a better handle on what's inside, and the chapter unique strategies, spells, and commands look tasty... eventually. Also nice fluff.

Good to know in the Matched Play missions... If they've been improving in quality, that's good to know and likely worth a purchase to me so my friends and I can reintroduce ourselves to the game with it's best foot forward.

OK OP, welcome back!
6th and 7th got a bit of a pass by me as well.

BRB is the good start, the new Chapter approved gives the latest points update (all of them), it does not replace missions, it adds some.
Then you look for FAQ's, they pretty much come out as soon as a book is published:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/
Any other rules updates would be in the other two Chapter Approved books (ignoring points values if covered in the "Munitorium" booklet).
The campaign books are the more hit or miss items you may want to look into depending on what extra faction rules or scenarios you wish to use.

Command points are the newer thing where formations decide how many you get so then you can spend them on "Stratagems" that act as wild cards for it appears pretty much anything.
Unit Keywords are important, it helps limit those powers that in 6th and 7th could use on pretty much any allies.

The information for units are diverse, a bit of a pain but not anything like 6th or 7th, first time I completely gave up on trying to keep track of it all.

8th I am having fun with, my friends still dislike the terrain rules but the "city fight" terrain rules can add some detail you may want.

A mixture of armies or "soup" is a thing but some rules are trying to entice/force mono-armies, if you like combined forces, now is a good time to play.

I find at least this is the least amount of "fussing" I have had to do per turn, it may appear to lack detail but you can dip into some more narrative options with your friends.
Matched play is still where my heart is at since we are a competitive bunch BUT we like our armies to look good too so even the less optimal models see table time.

Have fun!

 Irbis wrote:

Kaffis wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There are, at the time of writing, One Hundred and Forty Two rules documents for 8th edition. So much for less rules bloat, eh?

Repressors are found in the Imperial Armour Index - Forces of the Adeptus Astartes (for some reason).

Hmm. Fortunately, I'm a filthy casual that is okay with other people telling me what their fancy new thing does, so hopefully I can skip several of those. Oof.

You can skip 99.9% of the these because it's hyperbolic nonsense made up by people with axe to grind against GW. FAQ adds one sentence at the end of Space Marines FAQ? +1 to count, even thought it's the exact same file superseding old one. Points change? +1 to count for 2017 points change, +1 for 2018 one, +1 for 2019 one, times two if spring FAQ changes something, times three for Fall one, even if all you need is the latest point change (CA 2019) which explicitly makes all past ones obsolete (but +whatever made up number stays, of course). Intercessors get added weapon options one by one as GW adds upgrade sprues? +14 to count even if all you need is latest sheet, because we need to spread FUD etc, etc.

By that standard 7th edition came with 48575689038584905 """rules documents""" because all boxes had rules for units, tons of boxes had optional formations, a lot them also had decurions, but all of this was also found in Codex and anyone who would try to argue Codex counts as 8573957589 ""rules documents"" because you had these in a lot of other places too would be at best dishonest.

Regarding your Space Marines - all you need is Codex: SM. Period. If you want bike characters, these are in free Legends PDF. I'd only get supplement White Scars if you want to run Korsarro or need WS relics/stratagems, but it's optional extra. Also, small suggestion, since you can now build your own chapter, take a look at other supplements (in Wahapedia, for one), even if they are Scar successors in fluff you might want to use rules of another supplement. Still, I'd just get codex, have a few games to get a handle on rules, then start worrying about supplements, these are bonus, not mandatory thing.

Chapter Approved Annual books don't replace Matched Play missions, these are bonus, optional stuff too. Better than the original ones, IMO, but again, they are not mandatory and if your opponent wants to play these you can simply ask him to show you that page.

If you're going to strawman at least do it right. The count does not include superseded, replaced or redundant documents. I explicitly discount those. I even keep a list of those at the end! There aren't 6 Space Marine FAQs on the list, just the one.

Edit: In fact, thank you for bringing to my attention the fact that some people were confused. I have now numbered each individual document, so there is no confusion as to whether redundant and superseded documents are included. Thank you!

It's worth noting (in case someone else hasn't already mentioned it) that Kill Team is not a subset of the 40k rules; it's an entirely different game. In fact, Kill Team has far more individual model decisions making its basic ruleset a lot more complex than that of 40k, so dipping your toes into Kill Team probably won't give you an idea of the new 40k paradigm. I'm not saying you shouldn't try Kill Team; you absolutely should, but just a warning about the relationship between the two.

 Ginjitzu wrote:
It's worth noting (in case someone else hasn't already mentioned it) that Kill Team is not a subset of the 40k rules; it's an entirely different game. In fact, Kill Team has far more individual model decisions making its basic ruleset a lot more complex than that of 40k, so dipping your toes into Kill Team probably won't give you an idea of the new 40k paradigm. I'm not saying you shouldn't try Kill Team; you absolutely should, but just a warning about the relationship between the two.

And it's a 2:1 scenario, as the models you use in one can be used in the other. Kill Team is great while one is building up their models and for quick games on a weeknight.

Kaffis wrote:
Question: are characters that change force org slots essentially (or even completely?) gone? I notice that bike captains no longer make any mention of such things. Is the thinking that former bike-only, or jump pack-only armies just run multiple outrider detachments and don't get to have a lot of CP to play with?

So, lacking other codices, are Ravenwing, Deathwing, Saim-Hann, etc in similar boats?

Characters yes, but some sub-factions do this. E.g. for Chaos, taking the Emperors Children legion unlocks Noise Marines as a troop type, World Eaters unlocks Berserkers and so on.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Ginjitzu wrote:
It's worth noting (in case someone else hasn't already mentioned it) that Kill Team is not a subset of the 40k rules; it's an entirely different game. In fact, Kill Team has far more individual model decisions making its basic ruleset a lot more complex than that of 40k, so dipping your toes into Kill Team probably won't give you an idea of the new 40k paradigm. I'm not saying you shouldn't try Kill Team; you absolutely should, but just a warning about the relationship between the two.

And it's a 2:1 scenario, as the models you use in one can be used in the other. Kill Team is great while one is building up their models and for quick games on a weeknight.

Yep, this is why it's appealing. Rules complexity isn't the issue, game duration as the playgroup has diverged into adults with growing family commitments etc. instead of the twenty-somethings who could blow an entire Saturday to get a couple games in we used to be. I can put time into learning the rules, planning and modeling my kill team, and then spend part of an evening after work to play the game...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crispy78 wrote:

Kaffis wrote:
Question: are characters that change force org slots essentially (or even completely?) gone? I notice that bike captains no longer make any mention of such things. Is the thinking that former bike-only, or jump pack-only armies just run multiple outrider detachments and don't get to have a lot of CP to play with?

So, lacking other codices, are Ravenwing, Deathwing, Saim-Hann, etc in similar boats?

Characters yes, but some sub-factions do this. E.g. for Chaos, taking the Emperors Children legion unlocks Noise Marines as a troop type, World Eaters unlocks Berserkers and so on.

Got it. Because World Eaters and EC still haven't been broken out the way Thousand Sons and Death Guard have. Makes sense as the exception.

What you need is to come play Horus Heresy and wait for 40k to un feth itself.

LunaWolvesLoyalist wrote:
What you need is to come play Horus Heresy and wait for 40k to un feth itself.

Yeah, no.

7th is more of a dumpster fire than 8th has become.

 Grimtuff wrote:

LunaWolvesLoyalist wrote:
What you need is to come play Horus Heresy and wait for 40k to un feth itself.

Yeah, no.

7th is more of a dumpster fire than 8th has become.

Oh 7th ed 40k absolutely! The codex creep was horrible and formations were gamebreaking.

30k is not that thankfully. Its more so 7.5 ruleset fixing the issues 7th had. And you know, you cant fire lascannons from tank tail pipes creeping around a corner.

 Irbis wrote:

Kaffis wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There are, at the time of writing, One Hundred and Forty Two rules documents for 8th edition. So much for less rules bloat, eh?

Repressors are found in the Imperial Armour Index - Forces of the Adeptus Astartes (for some reason).

Hmm. Fortunately, I'm a filthy casual that is okay with other people telling me what their fancy new thing does, so hopefully I can skip several of those. Oof.

You can skip 99.9% of the these because it's hyperbolic nonsense made up by people with axe to grind against GW.

Congratulations on making it to the 0.01%!

Kaffis wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Yes, this means that you can't have Biker Troops anymore.

Yes, this means you lose out on 5 times the CP unless you take filler Troops.

Yes, this leads to a proliferation of cheap Battery Battalions to farm CP.

Having not gotten around to reading all the missions yet, are troops required or advantaged in scoring some missions? Only troops can claim control points but others can contest, troops count double for controlling, etc?

Troops are required for certain detachments (battalion, brigade, and patrol) two of which give way more CP than any other detachment, and one of which gives none so very few people take it. As for scoring, every faction's troops get "objective secured" which means they get priority for... securing objectives. Meaning that if even one troop model is on an objective, and your opponent is contesting it with any number of non-troop models, your lone troop model will still control that objective.

Now there are exceptions to that, certain armies have objective secured on everything, and there's at least one warlord trait that gives it as an aura ability. But for the most part it's generally the case. But it's not the MAIN reason you'll take them, the main reason is to get that precious CP.

One small note regarding starting off with Kill Team:

You're definitely going to want a lot of terrain to go with that. Kill Team really doesn't reach its full potential without a pretty dense gameboard to play on.

Also, given that you seem like you just want some casual, fun games with friends, I'd advise ignoring a lot of the more angry and partisan comments here about editions and errata and an alleged gajillion rules documents and so on. That stuff's really only applicable for really hardcore competitive matched play stuff. You'll be fine with the core books, codexes, chapter approved, and Kill Team annual. Just check the FAQ and errata if anything seems weird or off or confusing or causes conflicts with your friends.