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 Sasori wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Aash wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
I wonder if ANTI-NOT-A-VEHICLE is an option

You jest, but they could just make "poison" an ability that makes 4+ a critical wound against anything that doesn't have the vehicle keyword, but its pretty inelegant after introducing the anti-X rule.

I feel [ANTI-X] is for weapons designed to kill a specific type of unit. For something like poison, which should work against a wide range of unit types but NOT vehicles, making a [POISON] ability makes far more sense. Especially since there's infantry, monsters, bikers, cavalry, "MOUNTED", etc...

Yeah, I could very easily see a Poison rule that has something like two values POISON X,X with the Values corresponding to something like Infantry for the first, and everything but infantry/Vehicles for the second or some other kind of combination.

Makes it simple and easy to reference.

What's more simple and easy to reference than the way they've always done it?

"Poisoned Weapon 4+: Unless the target is a vehicle, an unmodified To Wound roll of 4+ is automatically successful."

Why reinvent the wheel?

Voss wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:
No plasma pistol or combi-weapon stats for the Battle Sister Superior, so presumably most of the 'character kit' will be on the Armoury card?

Or no longer an option

That seems unlikely, since its in the box and 'what's in the box!' is GW mantra these days.
On the other hand, Sisters don't have many weapons, so an armory card just for essentially sergeant gear feels weird. Especially since the melee stuff is on the battle sisters card.
I guess they may have felt the condemnor boltgun and combi-weapons are common to all the sister's squads, so just plunked them together, but couldn't do that with melee weapons since (hopefully) Celestians aren't swinging at WS 4+.

The melee stuff on the squad card hits on a 4+, fine for the troops but not for the Canoness and friends. All the Sisters should have high BS though, so a shared 'character ranged weapons' section will all have the same to hit values, whereas a Canoness will have a 3+ or 2+ on her card for her power sword.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:
No plasma pistol or combi-weapon stats for the Battle Sister Superior, so presumably most of the 'character kit' will be on the Armoury card?

Or no longer an option

Except those weapons are on the sprue, so them not being options is unlikely.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:
No plasma pistol or combi-weapon stats for the Battle Sister Superior, so presumably most of the 'character kit' will be on the Armoury card?

Or no longer an option

That seems unlikely, since its in the box and 'what's in the box!' is GW mantra these days.
On the other hand, Sisters don't have many weapons, so an armory card just for essentially sergeant gear feels weird. Especially since the melee stuff is on the battle sisters card.
I guess they may have felt the condemnor boltgun and combi-weapons are common to all the sister's squads, so just plunked them together, but couldn't do that with melee weapons since (hopefully) Celestians aren't swinging at WS 4+.

The melee stuff on the squad card hits on a 4+, fine for the troops but not for the Canoness and friends. All the Sisters should have high BS though, so a shared 'character ranged weapons' section will all have the same to hit values, whereas a Canoness will have a 3+ or 2+ on her card for her power sword.

I have to agree. Missing from the Battle Sister Datacard are the Pistols and Ranged Weapons you provide to the Sister Superior. Those currently have the same BS for Battle Sisters, Dominions, Retributors, and Celestians. Put them all on and Armory card and you can concentrate the unit cards on the non-Superior's weapons and the Superior's melee weapons.

I expect the Cannoness will have all her weapons on her data card. The only thing we are missing is whether the show far seen Combi-Weapon is a Terminator thing or will be replace the Combi-Flamer/Melta/Plasma for all most Imperial units.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Hold up, from the Crusade article:



Never receives a Charge bonus? What's a Charge bonus?

I assume the main one is attack strike first? Also some abilities might still have charging bonuses, often rolled into the condition of "charging, being charged, or heroic intervention" (usually it's bonus attack from what I remember, Carnifex still had it in 9th for example)

What if they decide that poison's real benefit is its affect on unit effectiveness?

So instead of it being a wounding roll modification, it's a battleshock effect.

Splinter rifle S4 AP0 D1

Poison - the target unit suffers -1 to battlshock tests if it suffered one or more wounds from a poison weapon.


The dark eldar should imo be big on screwing with the enemy's ability to fight properly, through terror tactics, incapacitants etc.

It would be cool to see an army whose main combat strategy is built around battleshock control.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Hold up, from the Crusade article:



Never receives a Charge bonus? What's a Charge bonus?

I took that to be a bonus to the charge distance. Like, "+2 inches", etc. Since they're fatigued, they can't get any further than normal.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

What's more simple and easy to reference than the way they've always done it?

"Poisoned Weapon 4+: Unless the target is a vehicle, an unmodified To Wound roll of 4+ is automatically successful."

Why reinvent the wheel?

If I'm following the argument correctly: Because the wound count on everything that was effective against has doubled (or more), while the very wound chart itself has become significantly more wide-ranging in terms of what weapons could damage what (bolters / lasguns / most rank-and-file weapons were completely incapable of hurting MCs before). Splinter weapons have also not seen any increase in their volume of fire / kabalites have not seen a corresponding halving of their points cost.

While I'm firmly behind the reduced lethality camp, this is a very valid argument. Poison is worthless if it takes something like 800 points of kabalites to put down a single carnifex. I also don't feel there's an elegant solution.

Making Poison some kind of ignores-armor auto-wound hybrid seems like the best answer? I think the best combination has been suggested; something along the lines of Anti-Infantry (5+), Devastating Wounds keywords (if I remember the key words correctly) combination. I think the solution is either reducing the "poison" threshold but making those wounds unsavable, making DE poison far more effective (3+ or even 2+, so that if you hit you're almost always forcing a save), or just massively increasing the RoF of splinter weapons.

None of those solutions are elegant or ideal, but I don't personally see any others.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

What's more simple and easy to reference than the way they've always done it?

"Poisoned Weapon 4+: Unless the target is a vehicle, an unmodified To Wound roll of 4+ is automatically successful."

Why reinvent the wheel?

If I'm following the argument correctly: Because the wound count on everything that was effective against has doubled (or more), while the very wound chart itself has become significantly more wide-ranging in terms of what weapons could damage what (bolters / lasguns / most rank-and-file weapons were completely incapable of hurting MCs before). Splinter weapons have also not seen any increase in their volume of fire / kabalites have not seen a corresponding halving of their points cost.

While I'm firmly behind the reduced lethality camp, this is a very valid argument. Poison is worthless if it takes something like 800 points of kabalites to put down a single carnifex. I also don't feel there's an elegant solution.

Making Poison some kind of ignores-armor auto-wound hybrid seems like the best answer? I think the best combination has been suggested; something along the lines of Anti-Infantry (5+), Devastating Wounds keywords (if I remember the key words correctly) combination. I think the solution is either reducing the "poison" threshold but making those wounds unsavable, making DE poison far more effective (3+ or even 2+, so that if you hit you're almost always forcing a save), or just massively increasing the RoF of splinter weapons.

None of those solutions are elegant or ideal, but I don't personally see any others.

It takes 1440 points of kabalites at 24", obviously 720 at 12". It takes 972 points of stationary bolt rifles and 270 bolter rounds, or 2430 points of tactical marines based on modern points and the upcoming screamer killer profile.

Lethality is down, carnifex is tough, small arms aren't supposed to be killing big things and that's the entire point. Yes splinter rifles are boring and feel ineffective but because a kabalite is cheap they're actually far more efficient than a lot of small arms in a world where toughness is up.

From the sisters article, I suspect that to hit modified will stack again. Both bracketing of s vehicle and indirect for apply a -1 to hit. It would make very little sense to have that if they don't stack as a bracketed vehicle would then still hit on a 4+ when firing out of line of sight. Same goes for the sisters detachment rule and the new heavy ability. But silly if those wouldn't stack.

Also, the miracle dice section specified you discard all miracle dice after an act of faith. Opens the potential for specific units/ upgrades (Zephyrim Pennant, please) to allow for 2 miracle dice being used.

 Skywave wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Hold up, from the Crusade article:

Never receives a Charge bonus? What's a Charge bonus?

I assume the main one is attack strike first? Also some abilities might still have charging bonuses, often rolled into the condition of "charging, being charged, or heroic intervention" (usually it's bonus attack from what I remember, Carnifex still had it in 9th for example)

Yeah I would have assumed it meant abilities that provide +1" bonus to Charge, or Furious Charge abilities that give +1S or +1A on the Charge. I don't think we've seen the latter yet, and it's possible they may nix those abilities to cut down on text on the data card, and instead just wrap up all those "Charge / when charged abilities" into a flat stat increase.

Us3Less wrote:
From the sisters article, I suspect that to hit modified will stack again. Both bracketing of s vehicle and indirect for apply a -1 to hit. It would make very little sense to have that if they don't stack as a bracketed vehicle would then still hit on a 4+ when firing out of line of sight. Same goes for the sisters detachment rule and the new heavy ability. But silly if those wouldn't stack.

Also, the miracle dice section specified you discard all miracle dice after an act of faith. Opens the potential for specific units/ upgrades (Zephyrim Pennant, please) to allow for 2 miracle dice being used.

I was thinking the same thing, since the new bracketing applies a penalty, as does indirect fire then presumably there has to be some stacking. Perhaps they cap it at max penalty of -2, and I presume Critical Hits / Wounds always succeeding on a 6 regardless of penalties.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:

 Skywave wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Hold up, from the Crusade article:

Never receives a Charge bonus? What's a Charge bonus?

I assume the main one is attack strike first? Also some abilities might still have charging bonuses, often rolled into the condition of "charging, being charged, or heroic intervention" (usually it's bonus attack from what I remember, Carnifex still had it in 9th for example)

Yeah I would have assumed it meant abilities that provide +1" bonus to Charge, or Furious Charge abilities that give +1S or +1A on the Charge. I don't think we've seen the latter yet, and it's possible they may nix those abilities to cut down on text on the data card, and instead just wrap up all those "Charge / when charged abilities" into a flat stat increase.

Us3Less wrote:
From the sisters article, I suspect that to hit modified will stack again. Both bracketing of s vehicle and indirect for apply a -1 to hit. It would make very little sense to have that if they don't stack as a bracketed vehicle would then still hit on a 4+ when firing out of line of sight. Same goes for the sisters detachment rule and the new heavy ability. But silly if those wouldn't stack.

Also, the miracle dice section specified you discard all miracle dice after an act of faith. Opens the potential for specific units/ upgrades (Zephyrim Pennant, please) to allow for 2 miracle dice being used.

I was thinking the same thing, since the new bracketing applies a penalty, as does indirect fire then presumably there has to be some stacking. Perhaps they cap it at max penalty of -2, and I presume Critical Hits / Wounds always succeeding on a 6 regardless of penalties.

The problem the current cap on modifiers was trying to solve was mainly due to the huge number of unit abilities and strats that handed out negative modifiers. We know strats are heavily reduced in 10th and if they similarly avoid giving too many units -1 to hit as an ability they may not need to put a cap on modifiers any longer. We've also seen Sisters get +1 to hit quite easily and the new Heavy rule gives +1 to hit when you don't move, so it's likely there's stacking in that direction too.

Yeah, modifiers being cumulative wasn’t a problem until you got jet fighters that could get -5 to hit and stealth operatives that blended in better than octopuses. Having stealth abilities that cap, like the cover bonus to saves does, would be a better solution and definitely the sort of thing that a complete rebuild of the game system would let you do all at once.

I think that the real problem with modifiers were with plasma weapons overheat and some occasions with odd dice values hitting and not-hitting. Anyway, intrested too see, how the new edition handles that.

I imagined trying to control stacking modifiers was why they changed Heavy weapons to have a lower BS standard and then apply a bonus for not moving.

Yeah hit modifiers for Jet's is definitely the poster child for why they had to remove modifier stacking.

On one hand I enjoyed the simplicity of modifiers not stacking but on the other hand it definitely leaves open some cases that intuitively frustrating. "Oh I already have a -1 to Hit? My as well advance and shoot my assault weapon without penalty".

Letting modifiers stack is the right call, I just hope GW does a better job ensuring they don't stack to the point of making gameplay unfun.

 AduroT wrote:
I imagined trying to control stacking modifiers was why they changed Heavy weapons to have a lower BS standard and then apply a bonus for not moving.

Also because Orks could not bit things- if they keep the always hit on a 6 wont be so bad

Leagues of Votann preview article up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/11/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-the-leagues-of-votann/

Hidden gem today: we now get confirmation that Critical Hits also exists in addition to critical wounds, and 'Critical' seems to be a semi-keyword that is shorthand for 'if this succeeds either due to rolling a natural 6 or by having a rule that let's it auto-succeed on another value'

League Hearthkyn said to be trained to the same degree as many races elite units with extremely reliable, quality equipment so now they're hitting on the same as guardsmen with lasguns. Makes sense....

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
League Hearthkyn said to be trained to the same degree as many races elite units with extremely reliable, quality equipment so now they're hitting on the same as guardsmen with lasguns. Makes sense....

Guardsmen already are the cream of the crop of the worlds they're recruited from, on the level of real-world special forces and such, pretty much the top percent of what unaugmented humans can realistically achieve. That they're mediocre on the tabletop is more due to the fact that most factions are in some way superhuman.

Also, from a gamey perspective, they get hit bonuses relatively easy depending on how many additional ways there are to roll out grudge tokens, so viewing their profile in isolation is a bit deceptive. Also, unit-wide ignores cover for all weapons is probably an adequate representation of good equipment, if you pay for that.

Edit: tomorrow World Eaters.

The conversion beamer is weird. All its hits at12"+ are critical hits, which give it d3 additional hits.
But... it isn't actually very good against heavy armor, and pretty naff against vehicles' new toughness values. Its an iffy anti-marine weapon. Good if shots slip through, but not particularly reliable about it.


Judgement tokens- enemies should now play to maim, but not entirely kill, Votann units.

Between this and Sisters, there's enough of a pattern here for Heavy weapons: they still want you to stand still to fire.
Interesting that the chaos marine autocannon wasn't like this.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
League Hearthkyn said to be trained to the same degree as many races elite units with extremely reliable, quality equipment so now they're hitting on the same as guardsmen with lasguns. Makes sense....

Guardsmen already are the cream of the crop of the worlds they're recruited from, on the level of real-world special forces and such, pretty much the top percent of what unaugmented humans can realistically achieve. That they're mediocre on the tabletop is more due to the fact that most factions are in some way superhuman.

Also, from a gamey perspective, they get hit bonuses relatively easy depending on how many additional ways there are to roll out grudge tokens, so viewing their profile in isolation is a bit deceptive. Also, unit-wide ignores cover for all weapons is probably an adequate representation of good equipment, if you pay for that.

Guardsman are well trained professional soldiers, but they aren't all trained to the standards of "elite" Warriors.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
League Hearthkyn said to be trained to the same degree as many races elite units with extremely reliable, quality equipment so now they're hitting on the same as guardsmen with lasguns. Makes sense....

Guardsmen already are the cream of the crop of the worlds they're recruited from, on the level of real-world special forces and such, pretty much the top percent of what unaugmented humans can realistically achieve. That they're mediocre on the tabletop is more due to the fact that most factions are in some way superhuman.

Also, from a gamey perspective, they get hit bonuses relatively easy depending on how many additional ways there are to roll out grudge tokens, so viewing their profile in isolation is a bit deceptive. Also, unit-wide ignores cover for all weapons is probably an adequate representation of good equipment, if you pay for that.

Edit: tomorrow World Eaters.

Also it could be to help encourage a defensive playstyle. All those heavy weapons get +1 to hit if they stay still, thatbis on top of any Judgement token benefits.

Tsagualsa wrote:


Guardsmen already are the cream of the crop of the worlds they're recruited from, on the level of real-world special forces and such, pretty much the top percent of what unaugmented humans can realistically achieve.

True, if you take worlds like Cadia, Krieg, Catachan etc. famous ones, but many others are simply whatever a ruler of world X wanted to get rid off for some reasons. Those are often just cannon fodder until their get experience trough attrition.

World Eaters up tomorrow.

EDIT: Ninja'd.


I like the changes to Votann overall - but the Detachment ability for a few extra CP just seems really boring compared to the others we've seen.

Voss wrote:
The conversion beamer is weird. All its hits at12"+ are critical hits, which give it d3 additional hits.
But... it isn't actually very good against heavy armor, and pretty naff against vehicles' new toughness values. Its an iffy anti-marine weapon. Good if shots slip through, but not particularly reliable about it.

Only for as long as you got no modifiers, once you're shooting at targets with judgement tokens etc. not all hits will be critical. I think the sustainded hits are meant to represent the old-school C-beams getting larger blast areas at range; it is the squat version anyway, heavier or imperial versions might get something else or something on top that keys off critical Hits.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Voss wrote:
The conversion beamer is weird. All its hits at12"+ are critical hits, which give it d3 additional hits.
But... it isn't actually very good against heavy armor, and pretty naff against vehicles' new toughness values. Its an iffy anti-marine weapon. Good if shots slip through, but not particularly reliable about it.

Only for as long as you got no modifiers, once you're shooting at targets with judgement tokens etc. not all hits will be critical. I think the sustainded hits are meant to represent the old-school C-beams getting larger blast areas at range; it is the squat version anyway, heavier or imperial versions might get something else or something on top that keys off critical Hits.

Well, sure. Its just I was thinking of the old conversion beamer and was looking at the HH one this morning, trying to decide on what to mount on a predator. Those seemed legitimately scary guns to face down, This is barely better than an old-school autocannon, and those were upgraded to 'predator autocannons' ages ago. The new profile for the CSM havoc autocannon is a more reliable piece of kit, for all that it averages one shot less.

 Asmodai wrote:
World Eaters up tomorrow.

EDIT: Ninja'd.


I like the changes to Votann overall - but the Detachment ability for a few extra CP just seems really boring compared to the others we've seen.

Well 'just' CP and bonuses to hit and wound against a target you want to die.


---
I see that 'kin melee weapons' ate the plasma sword, plasma axe and concussion gauntlet. That may well be the shortest lifespan for weapon types.

Well this answered the question about Guard units with two Vox rolling twice to get two CP back, you’re only allowed to gain one CP a round.

Tsagualsa wrote:
Leagues of Votann preview article up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/11/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-the-leagues-of-votann/

Hidden gem today: we now get confirmation that Critical Hits also exists in addition to critical wounds, and 'Critical' seems to be a semi-keyword that is shorthand for 'if this succeeds either due to rolling a natural 6 or by having a rule that let's it auto-succeed on another value'

Umm we have known critical hits exist quite a while. Top of my head at least in new weapon profile article in april.