40k New Edition Summary - 14th June 17: Lord Duncan paints Primaris in Gravis/non-codex SM focus

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**Youn**

Some randomness to charges has to be in the game. I wish they would have gone with M+1d6 but they didn't.

If you always make it M*2 or M and you have pre-measurement in the game. You will have a recipe for making shooting armies way to powerful. Image Tau with a line of firewarriors in front of a pile of Riptides behind them. They can let you get close, pre-measure the distance to a charge. Back up to 1.5" further then you can charge. Shoot you, let you move and back up again, rinse and repeat for a game.

**Rippy**

News should be up in roughly ten minutes, hold on to your horses or closest xenos breed available!

**changemod**

Vorian wrote:
warboss wrote:
Completely random charges as the default over ideal conditions (like open ground) are a bad game mechanic that doesn't make sense. Imagine if shooting units had to take a leadership check with increasing penalties every 3" from the target just to fire at all and they only got one chance at it as standard. They should have gone back to a constant charge distance individualized for each unit or at worst some combination of constant plus variable with increasing variability for worsening conditions like difficult terrain. It adds nothing to the game and is just randomness for randomness's sake.

It's not a bad mechanic at all. You mean it's a mechanic you don't like.

He gave a clearly defined reason for calling it bad, that has more substance than simple statements as to whether or not an opinion is an opinion.

**Daedalus81**

It's up. GW just slapped you guys good.

**CthuluIsSpy**

For the lazy.
Will highlight some interesting bits

This is part of the new Warhammer 40,000 with some of the biggest changes. We’ve already seen in our article on unit profiles that Initiative has gone. Instead, the priority for striking is based on the previous phase, with those units that completed a charge swinging first.

There’s a definite emphasis on making charging into combat effective – these units have gotten all the way across the battlefield, they’ve braved enemy fire and overwatch, and now they’ve finally made it into combat – they will at the very least get to swing.

Units that activate gain a free 3″ move towards the closest enemy. This can be used to get within 1″ of other enemy units, if you’re cunning, dragging more foes into the melee and preventing them from shooting next turn, even if you didn’t charge them directly (giving them no chance to overwatch). Enemy gun lines will need to be careful about how they position their supporting units, so as to avoid getting dragged into the fight too.

Following chargers, players take it in turns to activate units across the board to fight – this can get quite tactical, as both players need to choose the combats where dealing maximum damage will be important to them, while trying to limit enemy retaliation on their valuable or fragile models.

There are a few units that can interrupt this sequence to attack out of turn too – Tyranids with lash whips and Slaaneshi Daemons, for example – and it can also be influenced by Stratagems (more on these soon) if your army is Battle-forged, all of which add a nuanced level of tactical depth to the phase.

Players will have much more influence over the outcome of combat now, rather than purely the stats of the models involved, both in their own and in the opponent’s turns (though we still wouldn’t expect Guardsmen to triumph over a unit of Khorne Berzerkers any time soon – fix bayonets!).

Another thing we have seen is that hit rolls are now fixed. This has the effect of making dedicated combat units generally hit on a 3+, while models representing the most competent warriors of the 41st Millennium (Guilliman, the Swarmlord, Ghazghkull Thraka, to name but a few) will now hit on 2+!

Close combat weapons (which we’ll look at in more detail in future) also gain new rules – some will slice through armour easily, while others will hit with enough force to cause deal multiple wounds that can cripple or kill even powerful enemy models.

Across the board, these changes lead to combats that are more deadly than ever. Generals who successfully coordinate a battlefield-wide charge will be rewarded with a phase of utter carnage, while their opponent will have to work hard to minimise taking damage, and carefully consider their retaliatory options.

Expect combats to be hard-fought, bloody, and tactical – just as they should be.

We’ll be back tomorrow with some new details on morale – and after we’ve seen the damage that shooting, psychic powers and combat can do – can you blame anyone for running away?

**Ragnar Blackmane**

Youn wrote:

It is possible to make a 13" charge. With a 12 on the dice. Which would put you out of range of pistol overwatch.

As far as I understood the rules as they were mentioned in the article, you need to be within 12" to declare a charge against a unit. You do effectively get an extra inch for your minimum charge range, but only within 12 inches from the target.

**MaxT**

Ragnar Blackmane wrote:
Youn wrote:

It is possible to make a 13" charge. With a 12 on the dice. Which would put you out of range of pistol overwatch.

As far as I understood the rules as they were mentioned in the article, you need to be within 12" to declare a charge against a unit. You do effectively get an extra inch for your minimum charge range, but only within 12 inches from the target.

That is correct.

The basic mechanics of this phase are very similar to how they work now. You can select any unit within 12″ as the target of your charge, and your units will move towards them 2D6″.

**Seneca**

3" pile in sounds good, especially when it's used to prevent overwatch and further shooting. Otherwise not much new.

**warboss**

Youn wrote:
Some randomness to charges has to be in the game. I wish they would have gone with M+1d6 but they didn't.

If you always make it M*2 or M and you have pre-measurement in the game. You will have a recipe for making shooting armies way to powerful. Image Tau with a line of firewarriors in front of a pile of Riptides n them. They can let you get close, pre-measure the distance to a charge. Back up to 1.5" further then you can charge. Shoot you, let you move and back up again, rinse and repeat for a game.

I agree but i think that is a case of two wrongs (imo) not making a right. Premeasuring slows down the game and I'm not a fan if it either frankly. I'd personally be fine with removing it in the charge phase or even entirely to a lesser extent if that meant that completely random charges went with it. A semi random charge with no premeasuring is enough dramatic tension and randomness on top of three sequential random rolls to cause casualties.

**changemod**

Hmm almost no new information. The only real thing I see there not covered before is that you won't want units to stand within 2 inches of one another.

**theocracity**

Seneca wrote:
3" pile in sounds good, especially when it's used to prevent overwatch and further shooting. Otherwise not much new.

Yup - I believe that's how AoS works as well.

I knew speculating about consolidation was a stretch seeing as how it's not in AoS, so I'm not too disappointed, even though I think it would make sense.

**Rippy**

Does this mean that if you assault a unit, and some models are not within 1", then they can still overwatch? Or did I read that wrong?

Edit: I did read it wdong, wow you can assault other units that aren't currently in assault with the pile in move!!

**casvalremdeikun**

So close combat attacks are only made on your turn (short of special abilities). That renders things like Unwieldy pointless since your attacks all occur on your turn. While this means you aren't going to be wiping out units on your opponent a turn and it halves the amount attacks you are going to make over the period of the game, I am okay with it.

The ability to make a free 3" move basically means all charge distances have a 6" minimum (snakeeyes+3"+1" you need to be within in order to attack). So that is actually pretty good.

**Rippy**

casvalremdeikun wrote:
So close combat attacks are only made on your turn (short of special abilities). That renders things like Unwieldy pointless since your attacks all occur on your turn. While this means you aren't going to be wiping out units on your opponent a turn and it halves the amount attacks you are going to make over the period of the game, I am okay with it.

The ability to make a free 3" move basically means all charge distances have a 6" minimum (snakeeyes+3"+1" you need to be within in order to attack). So that is actually pretty good.

No I believe you both strike still in each other's turn, just whoever made the assault gets to hit first?

Then after first turn, you take it in turns choosing who hits first. Alternate activation of units.

**davou**

ooooooh man, 3 inch pile into new combats!

**Vaktathi**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
For the lazy.
Will highlight some interesting bits

Units that activate gain a free 3″ move towards the closest enemy. This can be used to get within 1″ of other enemy units, if you’re cunning, dragging more foes into the melee and preventing them from shooting next turn, even if you didn’t charge them directly (giving them no chance to overwatch). Enemy gun lines will need to be careful about how they position their supporting units, so as to avoid getting dragged into the fight too.

Following chargers, players take it in turns to activate units across the board to fight – this can get quite tactical, as both players need to choose the combats where dealing maximum damage will be important to them, while trying to limit enemy retaliation on their valuable or fragile models.

Welp. if anyone was hoping for IG infantry armies to become viable, that's dead on arrival, back into the tanks with everything

**Ragnar69**

casvalremdeikun wrote:
So close combat attacks are only made on your turn (short of special abilities). That renders things like Unwieldy pointless since your attacks all occur on your turn. While this means you aren't going to be wiping out units on your opponent a turn and it halves the amount attacks you are going to make over the period of the game, I am okay with it.

Huh? What makes you think that?

The ability to make a free 3" move basically means all charge distances have a 6" minimum (snakeeyes+3"+1" you need to be within in order to attack). So that is actually pretty good.

No, you have to be in combat to make the pile in.

**warboss**

GW wrote:
Generals who successfully coordinate a battlefield-wide charge will be rewarded with *A COMPLETELY RANDOM ROLL THAT POTENTIALLY MESSES IT ALL UP EVEN UNDER IDEAL CONDITIONS*

I fixed that for you, GW.

**Rippy**

Vaktathi wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
For the lazy.
Will highlight some interesting bits

Units that activate gain a free 3″ move towards the closest enemy. This can be used to get within 1″ of other enemy units, if you’re cunning, dragging more foes into the melee and preventing them from shooting next turn, even if you didn’t charge them directly (giving them no chance to overwatch). Enemy gun lines will need to be careful about how they position their supporting units, so as to avoid getting dragged into the fight too.

Following chargers, players take it in turns to activate units across the board to fight – this can get quite tactical, as both players need to choose the combats where dealing maximum damage will be important to them, while trying to limit enemy retaliation on their valuable or fragile models.

Welp. if anyone was hoping for IG infantry armies to become viable, that's dead on arrival, back into the tanks with everything

Just don't put all of the IG blobs together!!

**Eyjio**

What a mixed update that was.

1) Moving 3" in fight phase - great stuff, no complaints. I prefer this to consolidation into combat. Overlapping units to get overwatch seemed like a fools gambit anyway (good luck with those 6's I guess), but this makes sure that even clumping together could be potentially fatal. Seems interesting.

2) Dedicated combat units mostly hitting on 3+ - FINALLY. Sheesh, this is a long time coming. At last we have marines who are as good in combat as they are when shooting (maybe better if chainswords are a thing), which seems quite fluffy and opens up the tactical option to counter charge. I'm quite chuffed to see this, hopefully this makes combats resolve a bit faster.

3) Close combat weapons have special rules - meh? I mean, wasn't this completely expected? Hardly seems worth even mentioning - it would be a pretty bad trade off for combat if things like powerfists weren't strong.

Generally... meh? I expected all of these things; the 3" is from AoS, we already saw that tac marines hit on 3+ in combat and the weapons were totally expected too. I'm more interested to see unit profiles, i.e. if things like Ork Boyz also hit on 3+; now THAT would be scary. All that said, none of this alleviates my fears around combat at all - what's the advantage of assault marines over tacticals? Even if they're the same point cost, you're getting the ability to move quickly but trading things like good guns which do the same damage AND your charge is random distance so you might not even GET to do that damage at all. Woohoo? It still sounds like assault is way worse than shooting, but now I might keep a unit back to counter charge. There must be something I'm missing, because it still looks real bad.

**changemod**

davou wrote:
ooooooh man, 3 inch pile into new combats!

Yeah, but it won't come up often.

If you've got a mult-model unit on particularly large bases you have a decentish chance of pulling this off, but otherwise having to pile -towards- the -closest- enemy limits any opportunity.

**Asmodai**

warboss wrote:
Youn wrote:
Some randomness to charges has to be in the game. I wish they would have gone with M+1d6 but they didn't.

If you always make it M*2 or M and you have pre-measurement in the game. You will have a recipe for making shooting armies way to powerful. Image Tau with a line of firewarriors in front of a pile of Riptides n them. They can let you get close, pre-measure the distance to a charge. Back up to 1.5" further then you can charge. Shoot you, let you move and back up again, rinse and repeat for a game.

I agree but i think that is a case of two wrongs (imo) not making a right. Premeasuring slows down the game and I'm not a fan if it either frankly. I'd personally be fine with removing it in the charge phase or even entirely to a lesser extent if that meant that completely random charges went with it. A semi random charge with no premeasuring is enough dramatic tension and randomness on top of three sequential random rolls to cause casualties.

Many (most?) games are now played on battlefields consisting of 1'x1' or 2'x2' tiles connected together. Even if you don't allow pre-measuring with a tape, there's enough known points of reference for players to be accurate to within fractions of an inch with their guesses.

**nintura**

So you declare charges. Let's say 1 unit is now charging, 2 are in combat already. They overwatch. Phase done.

Now you fight. The unit that charged fights first automatically. Then you get to pick one of the other 2 units that are fighting and you get to strike first? Then your opponent picks another unit, and he gets to strike first?

**labmouse42**

Units that activate gain a free 3″ move towards the closest enemy. This can be used to get within 1″ of other enemy units, if you’re cunning, dragging more foes into the melee and preventing them from shooting next turn, even if you didn’t charge them directly (giving them no chance to overwatch). Enemy gun lines will need to be careful about how they position their supporting units, so as to avoid getting dragged into the fight too.

Wow. So you can consolidate into other units to skip overwatch.

I wonder how, in play, units with large bases like plague drones or bloodcrushers will work. Will it be easier to tag other units with them?

Another thing we have seen is that hit rolls are now fixed. This has the effect of making dedicated combat units generally hit on a 3+, while models representing the most competent warriors of the 41st Millennium (Guilliman, the Swarmlord, Ghazghkull Thraka, to name but a few) will now hit on 2+!

This makes those characters a bit more deadly in assault. Going from a 2/3 chance to 5/6 chance to hit increases their killyness by a good amount. Historically those characters have been 2/3 to hit, 5/6 to wound, invuln saves only. This brings them to 5/6 * 5/6. * invuln save.

**Seneca**

I'm also curious if close combat wweapons will get a range characteristic like in AoS, to differentiate individual weapons more.

**Ragnar Blackmane**

Guess there goes the multiple overwatch issue. If your units are close enough to each other that a charging unit can declare a charge against both of them, those units will likely end up sucked into the combat as well even if the unit only makes it into combat with one of them, making the attempt to get more overwatch out of charges one hell of a risk. Especially if multiple units are the gunline at the same time.

Also the "dedicated close combat units will all (well, at least most of them as I read it) at least hit on 3+" is pretty big. That means that e.g. Assault Marines are instantly superior in close combat than their tactical brethren even outside of just the number of attacks. Guess that compensates for ranged units like Tacs having a spare pistol for an extra attack to use in the shooting phase when locked in melee.

**changemod**

labmouse42 wrote:
I wonder how, in play, units with large bases like plague drones or bloodcrushers will work. Will it be easier to tag other units with them?

It'll only actually come up with those, unless your opponent places his units fantastically poorly. You'll need a pretty big base to clip a neighbouring unit when you need to pile towards the closest enemy.

**nintura**

So instead of spreading your models out 2" to avoid blasts, now you gotta spread your units out so they don't get dragged in

**Vaktathi**

Rippy wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
For the lazy.
Will highlight some interesting bits

Units that activate gain a free 3″ move towards the closest enemy. This can be used to get within 1″ of other enemy units, if you’re cunning, dragging more foes into the melee and preventing them from shooting next turn, even if you didn’t charge them directly (giving them no chance to overwatch). Enemy gun lines will need to be careful about how they position their supporting units, so as to avoid getting dragged into the fight too.

Following chargers, players take it in turns to activate units across the board to fight – this can get quite tactical, as both players need to choose the combats where dealing maximum damage will be important to them, while trying to limit enemy retaliation on their valuable or fragile models.

Welp. if anyone was hoping for IG infantry armies to become viable, that's dead on arrival, back into the tanks with everything

Just don't put all of the IG blobs together!!

There are fundamental issues of tablespace to deal with when you have 90-150 models on the table, there just isn't enough room to deploy everything and keep adequate spacing much of the time.

**davou**

changemod wrote:
davou wrote:
ooooooh man, 3 inch pile into new combats!

Yeah, but it won't come up often.

If you've got a mult-model unit on particularly large bases you have a decentish chance of pulling this off, but otherwise having to pile -towards- the -closest- enemy limits any opportunity.

eh, I dunno about your games, but I can make this work like gangbusters; Using a drop pod to slingshot along into a squad sitting on an objective for instance. We've also heard tell that IC are not allowed to be IN units anymore, so if we can expect them to be nearby, then we can use this catch them. Or if a squad leaves combat with you, you can use a charge against them in your next turn to try and cover distance to the other squads that haven't been chewed up yet.