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Don't sleep on the +1 to charge and advance. I use that on my primaris sm. It has been very useful for me.

 Oguhmek wrote:
To me morale based traits seem like just bad design because they hit different opponents in a very unbalanced way. For some reasons, my Orks will be very affected, while my Necrons mostly don't care. Why should my Orks fare worse against NL than Necrons? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Because for all their bravado, Orks DO know fear, and Necrons are soulless robots. Besides, given the current meta, aren't Orks largely immune to morale these days?

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Oguhmek wrote:
To me morale based traits seem like just bad design because they hit different opponents in a very unbalanced way. For some reasons, my Orks will be very affected, while my Necrons mostly don't care. Why should my Orks fare worse against NL than Necrons? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Because for all their bravado, Orks DO know fear, and Necrons are soulless robots. Besides, given the current meta, aren't Orks largely immune to morale these days?

No mob rule has completely changed, this is the only edition where morale means a lot to them, stupidily more so. Its just that no one is taking troops or any unit in large enough quantities for it to matter for morale (as with most MSU units in 9th) and for what its worth Orkz are pretty damn fearless, infact they dont fear the same things we do. They arent scaried of dying or caring about their own safety, but they would be scared of loosing a fight or loosing a race. Nightlords wouldnt scare an Ork, to be frank not a lot of things outside of humans/t'au/craftworlders would be unsettled by whatever flaying the Nightlords put on display. Their primary victims is the Imperium not the myraid fearless xenos races that have seen/done more terrible things.

Horde really needs some sort of buff to counter the drawbacks to blast and morale

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Oguhmek wrote:
To me morale based traits seem like just bad design because they hit different opponents in a very unbalanced way. For some reasons, my Orks will be very affected, while my Necrons mostly don't care. Why should my Orks fare worse against NL than Necrons? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Because for all their bravado, Orks DO know fear, and Necrons are soulless robots. Besides, given the current meta, aren't Orks largely immune to morale these days?

Fluff wise totally, but the problem is it leads to unfun gameplay. That is a mechanical issue in game design that is not insurmountable, but needs to be accounted for.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
Horde really needs some sort of buff to counter the drawbacks to blast and morale

is it horde or is it just the fact that GW overcorrected pts for "horde" units like boys, grots, and guardsmen?

I personally think its the later, a shota boy is not worth 9 pts.
a choppa boy is maybee worth 7.

Meta wise, Ld 10 Necrons in units of 20 are more susceptible to NL morale debuffs than Ld 7 Orks in units of 5/6 (Kommandos, Storm Boyz).

I do think all the leaked CSM chapter tactic/super doctrine combos tend to have one frustratingly meh compenent, but looking at Space Marines, they also have the same issue with a lot of theirs.

There will definitely be at least one but probably three strong builds upon release. CSM have such a massive list of datasheets, play in all phases of the game and there are all these layers of rules (chapter tactic, doctrines, super doctrines, god marks, icons, spells, strats, relics, warlord traits). The GW rules writers are going to get the points costs on 1~3 datasheets wrong and those will form the core of the strong builds.

I'm currently eyeing Bikers, Raptors and Warp Talons as 3 possible culprits as speed is so important in this edition. Chosen are a dark horse pick if their upgrade options include a speed boosting choice.

I have my doubts as to whether the whole codex will be playably strong like some recent others have been.

But, there is a lot of unknowns. Will Daemon Engines really get Legion traits (unlike TS/DG)? Will they benefit from the super doctrines? Are those marks right, -1 to wound w/ Nurgle seems a bit of an outlier.

A positive if the accursed weapon rumour is true, the chaos terminator kit is no longer completely awful, it mega sucked that it only has 1 of each weapon except power fists and combi bolters.

As an emperor's children player I'll happily go 3 power fist, 1 chain fist, 1 reaper/combi plasma/flamer.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Oguhmek wrote:
To me morale based traits seem like just bad design because they hit different opponents in a very unbalanced way. For some reasons, my Orks will be very affected, while my Necrons mostly don't care. Why should my Orks fare worse against NL than Necrons? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Because for all their bravado, Orks DO know fear, and Necrons are soulless robots. Besides, given the current meta, aren't Orks largely immune to morale these days?

Fluff wise totally, but the problem is it leads to unfun gameplay. That is a mechanical issue in game design that is not insurmountable, but needs to be accounted for.

Either EVERYONE needs to be seriously impacted by morale, or it should be a Codex or Datasheet rule.

And I don't mean that "You lost some models, lose some more" malarky! That's just lazy.

EightFoldPath wrote:
Will Daemon Engines really get Legion traits (unlike TS/DG)?

Thousand Sons Daemon Engines don't need the Legion traits because they already have one of the benefits (5++) and the other would never apply unless the Engine somehow became a Sorcerer.

Another big factor to keep in mind is how the base game has changed drastically over the course of the editions.

Even just back in 8th edition, the size of the game was the same 6'x4' table and the objectives were still very much secondary to blowing your opponent off the table turn 1. Terrain rules and blast weapons and a few other things hadn't really been solidified into the ruleset.

In 9th edition, games tend to be more about jockeying for position on turn 1, maybe getting a cheeky charge off or managing to take out an enemy unit from range if you can get good line of sight, but the importance is more focused on the objectives. Taking those objectives, holding them for longer, performing actions on those objectives and in other portions of the table, and taking out enemy leaders. The table is also slightly smaller, meaning engagement happens a lot faster.

What does that mean? It means an 18" -1 to hit for Alpha Legion vehicles and monsters was awesome in 8th edition, but isn't as important now. After turn 1, if your opponent isn't moving up the table to take objectives, they're setting themselves up for a loss without considering any casualties anyway. It's why you don't see Ultramarine castles dominating the battlefield any more, and why it's so important that Tau crisis suits have some melee stats to help them against inevitable charges, or even to be able to counter charge.

I agree that the Alpha Legion ability is situational. It also is limited. Any further rules that would normally stack with a -1 to hit are now redundant and don't stack in 9th edition. With how close armies tend to get, and how close combat-focused Chaos Marines tend to be, a -1 to hit is.... indeed situational. Is it still good? Yeah, definitely, but it's nowhere near as good as back in 8th when that bonus could stack or when armies were more focused on sitting back and alpha-striking each other turn 1 and 2.

There's still issues with Night Lords having a leadership-based faction ability in a game that has never really gotten leadership-based rules quite right (remember pinning and how it didn't apply to space marines ever at all?), and there's definitely clearly some winners and losers in these rumored rules, as there always will be (like Bloody Rose versus Sacred Rose for Sisters, one is a clear winner and the other is a clear loser), and that's just GW's awful internal balance.

It bites particularly hard because lots of people do really love Night Lords and want to see their awesome bat-winged lightning boys do well on the tabletop, instead of once again being relegated to one of the worst subfactions in the game for another edition or three.


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Ork-en Man wrote:
Don't sleep on the +1 to charge and advance. I use that on my primaris sm. It has been very useful for me.

And yeah, this is still pretty good. Especially if it can be combined with other strats. Very much fits the ability of raptors and warp talons to drop in, and only needing an 8 to charge rather than a 9 is always a welcome boost.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:
Will Daemon Engines really get Legion traits (unlike TS/DG)?

Thousand Sons Daemon Engines don't need the Legion traits because they already have one of the benefits (5++) and the other would never apply unless the Engine somehow became a Sorcerer.

A Daemon Engine Sorcerer would be cool.

We'll see the points. If the TSon Forgefiend and the CSM Forgefiend cost the same points, have the same stats, but the CSM one has a Legion trait and a super doctrine it'll be a shame. Specifically a shame on the rules writers. Then again, it'll be a drop in the shame bucket they've built up this edition.

The TS legion trait has always annoyed my slightly on the models that already have an invlunerable via a Sigil of Corruption or Terminator Armour. Am I paying points (twice) for the same ability? Hard to tell currently.

The question is: does that +1 to charge mean we lose Raptor Strike? Because needing a 9 on 3 dice is a lot better than needing an 8 on 2.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
The question is: does that +1 to charge mean we lose Raptor Strike? Because needing a 9 on 3 dice is a lot better than needing an 8 on 2.

Good question. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The rumor does mention
"All legions are getting 6 WT, 8 relics & 8 stratagems each (seems to be a lot from F&F but with some tweaks)
Each chaos god is getting a couple stratagems, 1 relic & 1 daemon weapon each"

which leaves plenty of room for extra stuff. iirc, the chaos marine codex of 8th edition had maybe 2 strats per legion and 1 relic per legion? So this will hopefully go a long way. There are a lot of subfactions that are effectively MADE by their combination of warlord traits and relics.

The 8th edition CSM codex had 1 stratagem and 1 relic per Legion. We'll see how much of the F&F stuff gets carried over, and if and how much they change. But it looks like there's some new stuff in that compiled leak list. Looks like jump troops get a MW and a -1 attack strategem. And Black Legion can make a unit another Legion for a turn?

 Rydria wrote:
A positive if the accursed weapon rumour is true, the chaos terminator kit is no longer completely awful, it mega sucked that it only has 1 of each weapon except power fists and combi bolters.

As an emperor's children player I'll happily go 3 power fist, 1 chain fist, 1 reaper/combi plasma/flamer.

Well, who wouldn't want to fight first with an unmodifiable 2+ to hit on power fists and chain fists, with exploding 6's for +2 hits and possibly +1AP on a wound roll of 6? Throw Excess of Violence on them for +1 attack per kill, potentially triggering even more hits. I imagine that Honor the Prince will get nerfed though so we'll have to see. Depending how Obliterators are handled they could be very scary in melee also.

Still...Emperor's Children don't look to bad at all in melee. Lucius looks worth taking now, but lets hope the +3 attacks w/ WS3+ is his updated Duelist Pride rule, and not his Warlord Trait. Even a unit 10x EC Legionnaires with bolt pistol/chainsword combo and an icon are hitting first with 41X attacks resulting in total 45 hits on average before any character auras, spells, or stratagems.

The only real concern is what they'll do with shooting, psychic powers, relics, and stratagems. Endless Cacophony is going to get nerfed for sure, dramatically reduce our firepower even before capping unit sizes at 10 model units. I really wish they'd update the profile on sonic weapons. It's kind of a shame the Noise Marine sonic blasters are the same as Primaris auto-bolt rifles, without ignore cover. They're chaos specific weapons so they don't have to match what loyalists have, but that not likely to change until with get new models for them.

Double shooting strats shouldn't exist at all to be fair.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Double shooting strats shouldn't exist at all to be fair.

Double-anything strats shouldn't exist... they tend to make a meh unit really good and a really good unit absolutely busted, and throw off internal balance, since the designers have to consider "ok but what if they shot twice?" and the end result is a nerf across the board.

I'd actually be thrilled if Endless Cacophony got removed or changed completely, since it would mean we wouldn't be obligated to take Mark of Slaanesh Obliterators or Havocs or whatever else. You could run other marks/icons/units and have them be just as potent or flavorful.

drbored wrote:
I'd actually be thrilled if Endless Cacophony got removed or changed completely, since it would mean we wouldn't be obligated to take Mark of Slaanesh Obliterators or Havocs or whatever else. You could run other marks/icons/units and have them be just as potent or flavorful.

Yeah, I think THIS is my biggest problem with Endless Cacophony: all CSM armies seem to be Slaanesh. If that stratagem was for EMPEROR'S CHILDREN instead of SLAANESH it wouldn't be nearly as popular.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
Horde really needs some sort of buff to counter the drawbacks to blast and morale

They should start by changing what constitutes a 'horde' in 9th. 6+ models is a joke.

drbored wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Double shooting strats shouldn't exist at all to be fair.

Double-anything strats shouldn't exist... they tend to make a meh unit really good and a really good unit absolutely busted, and throw off internal balance, since the designers have to consider "ok but what if they shot twice?" and the end result is a nerf across the board.

I'd actually be thrilled if Endless Cacophony got removed or changed completely, since it would mean we wouldn't be obligated to take Mark of Slaanesh Obliterators or Havocs or whatever else. You could run other marks/icons/units and have them be just as potent or flavorful.

Oh I agree, I'd rather that the individual units be made stronger rather than having to rely on stratagems to function. We'll doubtless get something weaker; and given how unimaginative GW is with CSM it'll be something like exploding 6 to hit cause +1 hit. Hopefully what ever they do it won't be more melee.

Am I the only one who's pretty happy about the Renegade traits? It looks like I might finally be able to effectively field an effective Crimson Slaughter/Brazen Beasts army. I am sad that it looks like we might be losing the Purge's and Flawless Host's cool rules.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Am I the only one who's pretty happy about the Renegade traits? It looks like I might finally be able to effectively field an effective Crimson Slaughter/Brazen Beasts army. I am sad that it looks like we might be losing the Purge's and Flawless Host's cool rules.

I'm pretty happy about those. We may see some of what the Purge and Flawless Host had in the 'make a warband' traits that you can pick from. There's usually 2 pages worth of those traits, so we'll see what sorts of combos we can do.

Has there been any word on Chaos Bikes yet? Potential for a new kit? New rules?


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 Dysartes wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 clockworkchris9 wrote:
posted an update:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/371366-what-to-expect-from-9e-csm/page-41

No offense, but this is some poster on a website I've never heard of before. How do we know this poster didn't make all of that up? Where is their credibility on display?

How verify?

Welcome to the wonderful world of rumours, Togusa - the whole point is that we can't know whether this is correct or not until the book comes out.

And I've never seen a statement start with "No offense, but..." that wasn't intended to be offensive.

It's hard to tell sometimes, on a Reddit thread I asked about one of the leaks last fall and people got really offended because "How dare I question the great leaker." When in reality I hadn't done much of anything with 40K in almost a full year and didn't know anything at all about the leaks at that time.

But I was unsure if this was the person who leaked all the Eldar and Tau stuff or someone else.

 Togusa wrote:
Has there been any word on Chaos Bikes yet? Potential for a new kit? New rules?

They're in the "new models" rumor list.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Am I the only one who's pretty happy about the Renegade traits? It looks like I might finally be able to effectively field an effective Crimson Slaughter/Brazen Beasts army. I am sad that it looks like we might be losing the Purge's and Flawless Host's cool rules.

Do we have a leak for the renegade traits?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Am I the only one who's pretty happy about the Renegade traits? It looks like I might finally be able to effectively field an effective Crimson Slaughter/Brazen Beasts army. I am sad that it looks like we might be losing the Purge's and Flawless Host's cool rules.

Do we have a leak for the renegade traits?

So far only two of the "custom" Renegade traits: +4 to all weapon ranges except for grenades and relics, and units count as being in all doctrines after killing an enemy unit. Red Corsairs and Creations of Bile are in the OP.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Has there been any word on Chaos Bikes yet? Potential for a new kit? New rules?

They're in the "new models" rumor list.

Ah, good to know!

I know there are probably some other Chaos Marine models that need a more dire update, but I really hope that we do get new Bikes. I have been wanting them for some time and the current models are just too stumpy and out of proportion for me to want to pick them up.

One of the only things I'm unhappy about from the rumours is that Noise Marines don't benefit from emperor's children legion traits and are always elites.

I understand it's for internal balance but it feels weird as hell when Death Guard and Thousand sons get their iconic troops as troops. At least emperor's children appear to be actually badass in melee now the potential 2+ to hit with even heavy melee weapons in cqc is really spicy.

 Rydria wrote:
One of the only things I'm unhappy about from the rumours is that Noise Marines don't benefit from emperor's children legion traits and are always elites.

I understand it's for internal balance but it feels weird as hell when Death Guard and Thousand sons get their iconic troops as troops. At least emperor's children appear to be actually badass in melee now the potential 2+ to hit with even heavy melee weapons in cqc is really spicy.

Wait what? I think I missed that part apparently.