Warhammer 40,000 new edition announced & new site ; UPDATE 28/04 Psychic Phase

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**nintura**

Vaktathi wrote:
nintura wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Hrm, seeing the Lascannon profile somewhat confirms my fears for vehicles. Even as T/Sv units now with 8 wounds, a Dreadnought will require fewer shots to kill on average than before.

Under the current paradigm an AV12 dread with 3HP will require an average of 6.75 BS4 AP2 Lascannon shots to kill, rounding up, say 7, with a 1/18 chance of any one shot inflicting an Explodes result.

As T7 W8 Sv3+, against a BS4 -3sv mod D6 dmg Lascannon, the chance to one shot is gone, but your average number of shots to kill drops to 4.93, round to 5.

Now, this may not be an issue if heavy weapons like Lascannons are rarer/more expensive or if vehicles are cheaper, we dont know yet, but but if they maintain roughly the same levels as they are now, both vehicles and MC's are going to be notably easier to kill on average, not including newfound minor vulnerability to small arms fire.

It's also interesting that, with ASM's back, they appear to be more subdued than in 2E. 2E bolters (and lasguns) had a -1 ASM, Lascannons a -6 IIRC, now that it 0 and -3 (and, seemingly for the first time ever in the game's history, allowing power armor to save against a Lascannon without some sort of extra enhancement).

I think I'd be ok with that actually. Not being able to be one shot, but still getting armor saves, even if more fragile. Seems good to me. I wonder how Leviathans will work now.
well, I think there is an overfocus on the one shot. A single lascannon from a tac squad wont have that ability, but a unit with multiple heavy weapons will have a far easier time killing such a vehicle with a single salvo, and the save wont make up for it. Thats my concern. Vehicles are already fragile and, at least looking at the Dread, it doesnt look to be getting hardier in any way (beyond the small chance for a single heavy weapon to one shot something), less so actually.

Now, other changes may balance that out, but if costs and weapons access remains roughly the same, then these units are going to be even worse off potentially.

Well yeah. If you have an anti tank squad shooting anti tank weapons, you can fully expect something to die

**ERJAK**

Colpicklejar wrote:
BrotherGecko wrote:
I wonder what the railgun is going to look like.

Personally, I favor heavy weapons being able to kill multiple models. There is zero reason for why a hyper velocity railgun slug should expend all its energy obliterating a single guardsmen.

If that was the case, heavy weapons would be better at killing everything, not just tanks. Lascannons would be the end-all choice. I think people should really try to think of this stuff more in game terms, rather than that what would "make sense" for the fluff of the particular weapon or unit.

I think you should take 2 weeks out and play some sigmar. Yes, Lascannons will be able to kill D3 models per turn, no that does not make it the end all choice. There are weapons in Sigmar that are actually far deadlier than the lascannon as posted that don't even come close to unbalancing the game, or eliminating baseline weapons,

See the thing is, you think that the lascannon will be super freaking amazing right up until a bank of 4 kills 2 orc boyz.

I think the problem is that 40k players are so used to dicerolls not mattering due to the number of buffs and rerolls that they forget what the game can be like when you can actually fail.

**Desubot**

MrDwhitey wrote:
"Damage is a big change. This stats effectively lets a single hit deliver multiple wounds to one model. So, as we can see, the bolter does a single would per hit, and so is optimised for shooting models that have a single wound themselves, whereas the lascannon, one of the most powerful man-portable weapons in the game, kicks out D6 damage, allowing it to blast chunks off large vehicles and monsters and kill light vehicles and characters in a single hit. Against something like Guardsmen or Orks though, this formidable damage output will be wasted."

The last line makes me think damage will be done to a single model, perhaps.

As for random hits for the flamer, I like the auto hit but I'd rather it were slightly less random perhaps, maybe d3+3 or so.

i agree. kinda silly to see a HOARD of something charging up a hill but only managing to torch 1 rando.

**Perfect Organism**

gorgon wrote:
My guess was that the save mods for 8th would **very roughly** follow this pattern:

Old AP5/6: no mod
Old AP4: -1
Old AP3: -2
Old AP2/1: -3

That's what I expect, although I think AP 1 is likely to get -4 and rending (and similar effects) might add another -1 to that.

What I'm wondering about is whether there is such a thing as a positive AP and, if so, what gets it? Would be a good way to reduce the impact of mass lasgun fire on big, tough targets now that it seems a roll of 6 always wounds.

Very nervous about what this means for orks. It seems tough targets are less vulnerable to medium-power weapons (e.g. the dreadnought takes a lot of S 7 AP -2 D 1 hits to kill, compared to how it fared against the old autocannon) but easier to kill with really powerful ones (lascannon seems like a pretty reliable dread killer). Since we have traditionally had some of the former and none of the latter, this could be bad.

If hotshot lasguns get -2 to saves, they might be pretty decent against heavy armour...

EDIT: one thing that jumps out: there don't seem to be any keywords on the weapon profiles. I expected flamers to say 'thermal' or something.

**Nostromodamus**

MrDwhitey wrote:
"Damage is a big change. This stats effectively lets a single hit deliver multiple wounds to one model. So, as we can see, the bolter does a single would per hit, and so is optimised for shooting models that have a single wound themselves, whereas the lascannon, one of the most powerful man-portable weapons in the game, kicks out D6 damage, allowing it to blast chunks off large vehicles and monsters and kill light vehicles and characters in a single hit. Against something like Guardsmen or Orks though, this formidable damage output will be wasted."

The last line makes me think damage will be done to a single model, perhaps.

Well the second sentence says precisely that.

**Mezmerro**

Mr Morden wrote:

Sorry can't do the math...

Wow... Just... wow...
I mean the hell they teach kids in the school these days?

The math would result in EXACTLY THE SAME.

**Kanluwen**

Colpicklejar wrote:
BrotherGecko wrote:
I wonder what the railgun is going to look like.

Personally, I favor heavy weapons being able to kill multiple models. There is zero reason for why a hyper velocity railgun slug should expend all its energy obliterating a single guardsmen.

If that was the case, heavy weapons would be better at killing everything, not just tanks. Lascannons would be the end-all choice. I think people should really try to think of this stuff more in game terms, rather than that what would "make sense" for the fluff of the particular weapon or unit.

Not necessarily.

Lascannons are a single shot that's relatively high power, but expends its energy quickly upon impacting the target.
It's massive damage, small impact. Think of it like an anti-tank round versus a high explosive round.
A railrifle round like the ones fired by Pathfinders would be similar to it.

I could see Heavy Railrifles getting a rule similar to the Death Jester's, where if they kill something organic then you have to worry about bone shards and the like hitting a small amount of the unit involved.
Railguns on the Hammerheads might get a step up from that, where it affects organics and vehicles.

**ERJAK**

Nostromodamus wrote:
MrDwhitey wrote:
"Damage is a big change. This stats effectively lets a single hit deliver multiple wounds to one model. So, as we can see, the bolter does a single would per hit, and so is optimised for shooting models that have a single wound themselves, whereas the lascannon, one of the most powerful man-portable weapons in the game, kicks out D6 damage, allowing it to blast chunks off large vehicles and monsters and kill light vehicles and characters in a single hit. Against something like Guardsmen or Orks though, this formidable damage output will be wasted."

The last line makes me think damage will be done to a single model, perhaps.

Well the second sentence says precisely that.

Which would be stupid.

**JohnnyHell**

Loving that change. Makes weapons do what they should! Flamer does D6 attacks each doing 1 wound to a model, lascannon does D6 wounds to one model. PERFECT.

Stops an anti-tank gun mowing down troops, or a flamer over-cooking tough models. Bloody simple and lovely.

**MrDwhitey**

ERJAK wrote:
Nostromodamus wrote:
MrDwhitey wrote:
"Damage is a big change. This stats effectively lets a single hit deliver multiple wounds to one model. So, as we can see, the bolter does a single would per hit, and so is optimised for shooting models that have a single wound themselves, whereas the lascannon, one of the most powerful man-portable weapons in the game, kicks out D6 damage, allowing it to blast chunks off large vehicles and monsters and kill light vehicles and characters in a single hit. Against something like Guardsmen or Orks though, this formidable damage output will be wasted."

The last line makes me think damage will be done to a single model, perhaps.

Well the second sentence says precisely that.

Which would be stupid.

Nope.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

MasterSlowPoke wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Latro_ wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

So your basic guardsman in flak armour is getting a save against an exploding bolt? Right...

Assuming guardsmen still have a 5+ save... #New40k is new

The imperium might be a lot of things, but guardsman are not going to go into combat naked! They will have basic armour of some kind.

For as long as I've been in the hobby, it's been set in stone that bolters and exploding bolts were good at taking out lightly armoured chaos cultists, guardsmen, and Ork flak armour etc etc

Bolters struggled slightly against Orks due to their toughness of 4, but that was never an issue, as that was the Ork background and physiology.

The system just isn't granular enough to really justify giving them AP -1. If a Lascannon is -3, that leaves Missile Launcher equivalents at -2 and Heavy Bolters/Autocannons at -1. If Bolters were -1, then that leaves everything stronger than a strong small arms weapon and weaker than a directed energy blast at -2.

I'm of the firm belief that the only save against a lascannon should be invulnerable or tank armour deflecting the shot. It's supposed to be a highly concentrated and powerful beam for dakka's sake!

-3 armour just makes a nonsense of years of their own fluff.

**Desubot**

JohnnyHell wrote:
Loving that change. Makes weapons do what they should! Flamer does D6 attacks each doing 1 wound to a model, lascannon does D6 wounds to one model. PERFECT.

Stops an anti-tank gun mowing down troops, or a flamer over-cooking tough models. Bloody simple and lovely.

Agreed.

Realistically a rail gun would chew through an entire line of perfectly lined up guardsmen but at some point you have to stand back and think about the game as a whole.

**ERJAK**

MrDwhitey wrote:
ERJAK wrote:
Nostromodamus wrote:
MrDwhitey wrote:
"Damage is a big change. This stats effectively lets a single hit deliver multiple wounds to one model. So, as we can see, the bolter does a single would per hit, and so is optimised for shooting models that have a single wound themselves, whereas the lascannon, one of the most powerful man-portable weapons in the game, kicks out D6 damage, allowing it to blast chunks off large vehicles and monsters and kill light vehicles and characters in a single hit. Against something like Guardsmen or Orks though, this formidable damage output will be wasted."

The last line makes me think damage will be done to a single model, perhaps.

Well the second sentence says precisely that.

Which would be stupid.

Nope.

trust me, having experinced a system where weapon stats work like this, changing it so that it only hits one model is going to create problems. Especially for matched play. Armies that are inherently either elite or blobby, like orcs or grey knights are going to be a b***h to plan for.

**Daedalus81**

ERJAK wrote:

Which would be stupid.

Umm, why? Its not a sweeping laser.

**Mezmerro**

JohnnyHell wrote:
Stops an anti-tank gun mowing down troops, or a flamer over-cooking tough models. Bloody simple and lovely.

Actually it does not in case of a flamer - it now does extra attacks even against single-model units

**MrDwhitey**

ERJAK wrote:

trust me

No.

**Elbows**

So, one curiosity about the flamer mechanic (perhaps someone from AoS can elaborate).

8" range which is the same as the template and D6 hits which is okay. People will complain about rolling 1's, etc. when face to face with a swarm. However to offset that...if you're within 8" of a single model from a swarm, and roll 6 hits. Will the rest of the unit (technically out of range) take those hits? If so, the flamer just balanced itself out tremendously by spiking its own range through additional hits.

OR...(in AoS at least) do all of the stuck models need to be within the actual 8" range?

PS: I'm also happy to see templates go solely because we can re-introduce proper hand flamers and large flamers (which used to shoot about 4" and like 12" respectively). I hated when they dropped to three templates and shoe-horned every weapon int the game into those three.

**Smellingsalts**

I think the Lascannon will clear out infantry really well. Logically, that would be the weapon to give everyone but of coarse there will be restrictions on how many your squad can take. I think people are getting caught up in thinking this game reflects reality. I don't think the designers valued that as much as speed of play and game flow. Guess we will have to wait and see.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

I have no problems with a Chaos cultist, tucked behind a concrete wall, getting a good cover save against a boltgun shot. That's fine in my book.

But in the open? And no armour piercing modifier? GW are basically saying that any old bit of cardboard tucked into your jacket as armour is enough to deflect a boltgun round.

**Kanluwen**

Desubot wrote:
JohnnyHell wrote:
Loving that change. Makes weapons do what they should! Flamer does D6 attacks each doing 1 wound to a model, lascannon does D6 wounds to one model. PERFECT.

Stops an anti-tank gun mowing down troops, or a flamer over-cooking tough models. Bloody simple and lovely.

Agreed.

Realistically a rail gun would chew through an entire line of perfectly lined up guardsmen but at some point you have to stand back and think about the game as a whole.

To be fair, we usually see special rules associated with specific weapons--who knows what we're not seeing at this juncture?

Maybe that Lascannon can hit multiple targets at once--but that still wouldn't make it a better infantry killer than vehicle/monster killer since a Bolter or Flamer could do the same thing without wasting damage output better used elsewhere.

**Daedalus81**

Elbows wrote:
So, one curiosity about the flamer mechanic (perhaps someone from AoS can elaborate).

8" range which is the same as the template and D6 hits which is okay. People will complain about rolling 1's, etc. when face to face with a swarm. However to offset that...if you're within 8" of a single model from a swarm, and roll 6 hits. Will the rest of the unit (technically out of range) take those hits? If so, the flamer just balanced itself out tremendously by spiking its own range through additional hits.

OR...(in AoS at least) do all of the stuck models need to be within the actual 8" range?

PS: I'm also happy to see templates go solely because we can re-introduce proper hand flamers and large flamers (which used to shoot about 4" and like 12" respectively). I hated when they dropped to three templates and shoe-horned every weapon int the game into those three.

The average is 3.5. Yes it might roll a 1. Yes it might roll a 6. It doesn't matter. The average is 3.5.

Looking at rubrics being able to take all flamers should give people indication that you probably won't have just one or two in the near future.

**ERJAK**

Daedalus81 wrote:
ERJAK wrote:

Which would be stupid.

Umm, why? Its not a sweeping laser.

Game one, you play grey knights Awesome! I can kill all his models in one hit! Game two, you play orcs, well this was fun.

Even creating a balanced list won't let you overcome armies that are inherently one thing or the other.

That said, it could work, it could be perfectly fine, but in Sigmar, which has a very similar profile system, having weapons work this way would destroy the game.

Maybe they'll be moving some of the damage onto the number of shots instead...that could work.

Yeah I think that's what they'll do, having Damage only hit one model but having a much wider variation in the number of shots.

**Hragged**

Liking the weapon profiles, and happy to see the move away from templates! Always hated hovering those things above minis, this is much cleaner.

**kodos**

kind of disappointed

while thinking of fixed damage for heavy weapons (like 3 wounds for lascannon) was always unrealistic because GW likes those random roll
I really hoped for at least to have multiples of a D3 as basic.

short range flamer doing 1 hit to a unit
can never think of a situation were only one model was below the template
straight nerf against mass-infantry and they are now the perfect weapon for killing single models in short range

lascannon with 1-6 damge is the same unreliable gambling as now.
with a lucky 6 the tank is done, with a 1 nothing happens
and it is worse in killing Terminators in 8th than in 7th (by doing the math)
so a nerf here too, because lascannons were already too strong

so cheaper spamable high ROF weapons are still better at killing tanks because of the more reliable damage output

guess Heavy Bolter will be Heavy3, S5, AP-1and either D1 or D D3

and that Marines who's greatest enemy are other Marines don't use weapons that are made to kill marines (so at least have AP-1) has always been the strangest thing about 40k

**JohnnyHell**

Mezmerro wrote:
JohnnyHell wrote:
Stops an anti-tank gun mowing down troops, or a flamer over-cooking tough models. Bloody simple and lovely.

Actually it does not in case of a flamer - it now does extra attacks even against single-model units

Eh. Wrong example then on a super new thing, but you got the gist. The anti-tank bit stands, lascannons are wasted on shooting troopers, and if flamers DO overcook then actually that's actually represetative of real-ish... so even better! :-D But other D6 or D3 damage things would be overkill on a 1W infantryman, as it should be.

**Daedalus81**

ERJAK wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
ERJAK wrote:

Which would be stupid.

Umm, why? Its not a sweeping laser.

Game one, you play grey knights Awesome! I can kill all his models in one hit! Game two, you play orcs, well this was fun.

Even creating a balanced list won't let you overcome armies that are inherently one thing or the other.

That said, it could work, it could be perfectly fine, but in Sigmar, which has a very similar profile system, having weapons work this way would destroy the game.

Maybe they'll be moving some of the damage onto the number of shots instead...that could work.

Yeah I think that's what they'll do, having Damage only hit one model but having a much wider variation in the number of shots.

This is not Age of Sigmar. And you're not taking all lascannons.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

JohnnyHell wrote:
Mezmerro wrote:
JohnnyHell wrote:
Stops an anti-tank gun mowing down troops, or a flamer over-cooking tough models. Bloody simple and lovely.

Actually it does not in case of a flamer - it now does extra attacks even against single-model units

Eh. Wrong example then on a super new thing, but you got the gist. The anti-tank bit stands, lascannons are wasted on shooting troopers, and if flamers DO overcook then actually that's actually represetative of real-ish... so even better! :-D But other D6 or D3 damage things would be overkill on a 1W infantryman, as it should be.

Even if they do 'overcook' it will be against some tough and likely well armored opponents.

**godardc**

Bolters don't have ap ? I'm very surprised, but this isn't very important. This «new» system seems interesting, I'm looking forward playing 8th ed !

**Desubot**

ERJAK wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
ERJAK wrote:

Which would be stupid.

Umm, why? Its not a sweeping laser.

Game one, you play grey knights Awesome! I can kill all his models in one hit! Game two, you play orcs, well this was fun.

Even creating a balanced list won't let you overcome armies that are inherently one thing or the other.

That said, it could work, it could be perfectly fine, but in Sigmar, which has a very similar profile system, having weapons work this way would destroy the game.

Maybe they'll be moving some of the damage onto the number of shots instead...that could work.

Yeah I think that's what they'll do, having Damage only hit one model but having a much wider variation in the number of shots.

Take a mixture of weapons and stop min maxing?

besides most people will still have tanks and transportation that those lascannon batteries can do something with.

Hragged wrote:
Liking the weapon profiles, and happy to see the move away from templates! Always hated hovering those things above minis, this is much cleaner.

glad its gone.

no more arguing about the 1 atom touching some stray lint coming off of a base on one model (honestly i dont care if they are willing to bitch about it i just give it to them) and oh thank god no more figuring out how stuff works on multi level terrain and hitting people out of los.

**ERJAK**

JohnnyHell wrote:
Mezmerro wrote:
JohnnyHell wrote:
Stops an anti-tank gun mowing down troops, or a flamer over-cooking tough models. Bloody simple and lovely.

Actually it does not in case of a flamer - it now does extra attacks even against single-model units

Eh. Wrong example then on a super new thing, but you got the gist. The anti-tank bit stands, lascannons are wasted on shooting troopers, and if flamers DO overcook then actually that's actually represetative of real-ish... so even better! :-D But other D6 or D3 damage things would be overkill on a 1W infantryman, as it should be.

Yeah, gotta say if they're willing to put a bigger range on the number of shots weapons get than 1-5 I'd be fine with the weapon system. I still think having the damage not spill over is a bit weird but eh, it is a different system.

**Kanluwen**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I have no problems with a Chaos cultist, tucked behind a concrete wall, getting a good cover save against a boltgun shot. That's fine in my book.

But in the open? And no armour piercing modifier? GW are basically saying that any old bit of cardboard tucked into your jacket as armour is enough to deflect a boltgun round.

Why should they have an armor piercing modifier?
And is it really so bad that a Guardsman can potentially make a save against boltguns?

Also, while we always refer to it as an "Armor Save"--it's been labeled as "Save" for awhile as the value.
The 5+ might represent a combination of the flak armor and training for Guardsmen. I.e--"When the rounds start flying, duck".