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 westiebestie wrote:
No artillery in the LI core book, no.
Whirlwinds/Scorpius, Basilisk, Medusa etc presumably in next book. Or next next.. :p

That makes me cry in Iron Warriors.

Kind of hoping Artillery is a straight (or near enough) port of 2nd Ed, where each gun in a Battery had a Barrage Point value, and when fired, those were added together as a single blast template.

Given their often extreme range, and not needing LoS, being able to erode their effectiveness kept things fun.

Oh, and Basilisks could be fired twice. Be nice if that’s kept!

 Matrindur wrote:
For anyone not wanting to wait for a battlescribe version, I created a quick LI army builder sheet that calculates points and upgrade costs:
Just create a copy of the sheet and fill out the dropdown fields to enter your units (and the additional grey fields for SM)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15I9LgPuB7UIoMMMB-Xh-Yjt8JGrYua3qP-_rUy9HrKM/edit?usp=sharing

For Knights and Titans if you want to take more than one detachment of the same kind just overwrite the automatic points, didn't manage to do it better with the time I had

Thanks. Only issue had is can't figure out how to remove say battle tank from detachment. Also for demi company point total didn't factor rhino's and heavy battle tank. This makes below list over points actually.

Seems with my first purchases will get 2k list fairly well. Demi company with hq, 2x4 tactical, 4 devastator, 4 support, 10 rhino. Armoured formation with 2 sicaran, 3 predator, 4 kratos. And air assault with command, 2x4 tactical, 4 terminator, 4 assault, thunderhawk, 8 terminators(probably something has to go to regular company). Warhound and questor knight(1) and I'm at 2020. Argh! 20 pts over...

tneva82 wrote:


Also for demi company point total didn't factor rhino's and heavy battle tank. This makes below list over points actually.

That should be fixed now

tneva82 wrote:

Thanks. Only issue had is can't figure out how to remove say battle tank from detachment.

Do you mean the actual units so Predator/Sicaran? Those you need to click on the cell with the drop down (Not the drop down itself but the cell its placed in) and use the delete button. That way the drop down menu gets cleared. Be careful if you do that on an empty dropdown list the dropdown itself gets deleted

 westiebestie wrote:
No artillery in the LI core book, no.
Whirlwinds/Scorpius, Basilisk, Medusa etc presumably in next book. Or next next.. :p

Not even the quad launcher?? Since rapiers/tarantulas are in the book, I was expecting light artillery payload...

Gone for a core box plus one of the extras bar titans and complete buildings (which I have plenty of). Missed out on the cards, but I might just write out my own summaries in Word or something.

Sorry I am such a child..

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kind of hoping Artillery is a straight (or near enough) port of 2nd Ed, where each gun in a Battery had a Barrage Point value, and when fired, those were added together as a single blast template.

Given their often extreme range, and not needing LoS, being able to erode their effectiveness kept things fun.

Oh, and Basilisks could be fired twice. Be nice if that’s kept!

I hope they keep something in line with this. I really liked the Flames of War 'spotting' system and I know that has a feel for the way artillery works in 'real life', but I think at this scale, this level of abstraction, a simple 'direct/indirect' system with combination barrage points and a hit score based on that would stop things from bogging down too much.

At this point, if the barrage rules are being introduced in an expansion.. maybe something Imperial Fists vs. Iron Warriors, one of those big battles and a bunch of fortification rules (including some new plastic fortifications) introduced at the same time? Perhaps something like that.

Man, I was planning on doing Dark Angels, but…but….Super Heavies….and the shown off Artillery.

One hopes if artillery is the "barrage point" system the old earlier edition cheese of "fire them all individually" is gone and they have to combine

no more firing basilisks individually at titans to strips all the shields for example

easy way if the do combine, and then critically, all scatter as one, avoiding the other bit where stuff scattered individually making artillery time consuming when it missed.

my 3d printed Whirlwinds & Vindicators are sitting ready

I’ll need to check my old rules, as I cant recall if firing one at a time was even allowed, or was loopholey.

Certainly my recollection is of combining BP - but that may have been for sheer efficiency, as the more BP the harder that barrage hit.

I don't think it was clearly stated either way, the 2BP from a basilisk shot on its own was rubbish, but it would strip a void shield if it hit, a battery of three of the things got to fire six such shots

or combine into a pair of 6BP shots which were much better at actually hurting things.

I think the way it was written the idea was the three would each drop their templates, roll to hit, scatter, and then you worked out the effective BP based on what was under the template - so two hitting and one scattering a bit could see some hit by 6BP where they overlapped, some by 4 and some by just 2.

just got a bit time consuming so many fired them individually or counted them as one weapon.

1st edition was in someways even easier, each weapon dropped a template, individually

Artillery rules should be in the core rules, I really hope. But no (?)models using the mechanic in the army lists it seems.

SU-152 wrote:

 westiebestie wrote:
No artillery in the LI core book, no.
Whirlwinds/Scorpius, Basilisk, Medusa etc presumably in next book. Or next next.. :p

Not even the quad launcher?? Since rapiers/tarantulas are in the book, I was expecting light artillery payload...

Yes, Rapiers are in the lists.

Mole launcher & quad launcher Could use barrage rules, but could also be a straight up roll to hit like the shown Demolisher cannon. We'll see.

Parking my Whirlwinds & Land Raiders for the first trout games at least.

So many units teased for coming release already though, so not expecting it to take long before those & the expansion book with Transports (other than Rhinos ), fast attack & artillery units comes out.

Curious to see if the Barrage points mechanic is kept.

I don't think I ever saw a game played where you could choose to split artillery fire into separate barrages? Will need to check my rulebook.

I remember there was a specific titan weapon (a 1 shot missile) which laid down multiple templates, and possibly the manticore missile launcher had separate ones(?) - that was balanced out by needing a turn to reload.

 Albertorius wrote:

 westiebestie wrote:
No artillery in the LI core book, no.
Whirlwinds/Scorpius, Basilisk, Medusa etc presumably in next book. Or next next.. :p

That makes me cry in Iron Warriors.

Yeah, I have just planned printing Fellblades, Typhons & Cerberus for IH & IW. Don't even know if SHTs are in the coming LI expansion or if that's in the next, next book. Drip feed rules..

Anyway we can also play the existing rulesets so I can play them there meanwhile.

For anyone wondering about the barrage stuff, here is the datasheet for the SA Rapier which has the barrage rule on the quad launcher:



And here is the Barrage rule:


Its a bit hard to make out but as far as I can see the rule says:

Can target detachments without line of sight, at a -1 to hit. You also choose to allocated hits only to models within line of sight (Not detachments its talking about the individual bases here), if you do then you don't get the -1 to hit. But then no hits can be allocated to out of line of sight models even if you roll more than needed for the in line of sight models.
If targeting a garrisoned detachment, target all detachments inside the garrison instead. Each enemy detachment gets half the normal number of hit dice rolled against instead. So while you can hit everyone you only hit each with half the normal dice. Barrage weapons also can't be used for overwatch

Of course real artillery could still have other different rules but at least for what we currently have this is it

Thanks! That's interesting, and it appears that they feel that doing "direct fire" with artillery is a little bit more accurate.

In E:40k you had three rules for these kinda units:

- Artillery (Unit Special ability), which allows a unit to shoot out of LoS units (that's the rule, you don't need LoS to shoot, that's it) and to make preparatory bombardments, a special order that allows the detachment to shoot immediately before or after the opponent starts their part of the Movement phase, but only with the artillery units, and the detachment cannot move (it counts as being in Overwatch the rest of the turn)

- Barrage (type of weapon), which allowed you to put a barrage template over an enemy detachment (just one, no matter how many barrage units shot), then you count how many enemy units are under the template, and that's the total firepower for the attack, multiplied for the number of barrage units that shot.

- Heavy Barrage (type of weapon), same as Barrage, but the FP is double the number of enemy units under the template.

And that was about it ^^

 Albertorius wrote:
Thanks! That's interesting, and it appears that they feel that doing "direct fire" with artillery is a little bit more accurate.

In E:40k you had three rules for these kinda units:

- Artillery (Unit Special ability), which allows a unit to shoot out of LoS units (that's the rule, you don't need LoS to shoot, that's it) and to make preparatory bombardments, a special order that allows the detachment to shoot immediately before or after the opponent starts their part of the Movement phase, but only with the artillery units, and the detachment cannot move (it counts as being in Overwatch the rest of the turn)

- Barrage (type of weapon), which allowed you to put a barrage template over an enemy detachment (just one, no matter how many barrage units shot), then you count how many enemy units are under the template, and that's the total firepower for the attack, multiplied for the number of barrage units that shot.

- Heavy Barrage (type of weapon), same as Barrage, but the FP is double the number of enemy units under the template.

And that was about it ^^

Those Barrage rules are more like the Blast rule for LI:

Place the 3"/5" Blast template over the enemy and scatter it via the scatter dice. Then make a hit roll for each detachment under the template with a number of dice equal to the number of models (Again this should be individual bases) fully inside the template multiplied by the dice value of the weapon. In addition you roll one D6 for each model partially inside the template and on a 4+ its counted as fully inside.

As far as I can see this rule currently only appears on Titans and only starting with the Warbringer BUT those only have the Blast (5") rule on their weapons so its likely some future artillery will get the blast (3")

There is also one more rule I missed before which is Heavy Barrage again only on Titans for now as far as I can see:

Same as the Barrage rule but can damage structures too

So it seems the Barrage rule is basically the old Artillery rule which gives you indirect fire but instead of preparatory bombardments it has better shooting against stuff inside garrisons.
And the Blast rule is similar to old barrage with it being a template and number of hit rolls depending on bases underneath

Yeah, basically

LI Barrage= indirect fire.

LI Blast= template attacks

Great, thanks! That seems fairly simple and good as far as mechanics go.

SU-152 wrote:
Yeah, basically

LI Barrage= indirect fire.

LI Blast= template attacks

LI Barrage= Indirect Fire with -1 to hit.

 Matrindur wrote:
So it seems the Barrage rule is basically the old Artillery rule which gives you indirect fire but instead of preparatory bombardments it has better shooting against stuff inside garrisons.
And the Blast rule is similar to old barrage with it being a template and number of hit rolls depending on bases underneath

Something like that, it seems, with the added differences of how Firepower works in E40k. And artillery having a malus when being used as artillery, apparently?

Another interesting bit about the Neutron Flux rule I missed the first time is that is references the Cybernetic Cortex special rule which isn't in the book at all. So not only do we have the Neutron flux rule which no unit in the book has, its about getting bonuses against units with a rule that isn't even in the book.
Neutron Flux:

Hits scored by a Neutron Flux weapon against a model with the Cybernetic Cortex special rule count as having the armourbane and shred traits

Cybernetic Cortex also screams Mechanicum to me which would make sense why its not in the book as they probably developed all the special rules but cut any that isn't Space Marines or Solar Auxilia from the book since other factions aren't announced yet. Neutron Flux and some other rules that aren't on any current model are fine to be in the book since they are from the SM/SA factions even if the models they come on aren't announced yet. But Cybernetic Cortex isn't in the book as the faction itself isn't announced yet.
But if that is true what it tells us is that the rules for Mechanicum where already developed together with the other stuff so it shouldn't take years until we get them as a faction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I had another look at the October White Dwarf battle report now that we know the formations in the book and as I already expected there are other formations used in that battlereport we don't have yet.
The Blood Angels army has a Sky Hunter Phalanx and a Drop pod Assault in addition to the known Armoured Company.

The Sky Hunter Phalanx in the battlereport focuses on bikes, jetbikes, javelins and proteus speeders which according to the symbols used are all vanguard slots for five slots used in total.
So while we don't know how many of those are compulsory and how many are optional we at least know that every compulsory slot in this formation is a vanguard slot as there are no non-vanguard units in this formation.
This formation makes sense since none of the current formations really allows big vanguard armies since we only have a single slot in the Demi-Company and another single slot in the Aerial Assault.

The Drop Pod Assault formation seems to be close or the same to the Demi-Company just that it allows you to upgrade every detachment with Drop-Pods instead of Rhinos.

For anyone not yet knowing how Transports work, as far as I understood it unless the formation itself has a special Transport rule you need to use transport detachment slots for any transport you buy and since the Demi-Company is the only formation that even has transports slots for SM you won't be able to use any for the Garrison Force/Armoured Company/Aerial Assault. Transports bought in generic transport slots can be used for any detachment in the formation.
In addition any formation can have a special transport rule that allows you to upgrade your detachments with a transport without using a slot but the transport can only be used by the detachment is was purchased for in this case. The Demi-Company for example allows you to buy Rhinos for any Infantry only detachments and the Aerial Assault formation allows you to buy Storm Eagles and Thunderhawks as transports for any detachment in the formation (Though you could still bring them as Aerial Support detachments anyway)
The only questionmark for me is how the Deathguard player got rhinos for their Garrison Force in the Battlereport. The formation doesn't have any transport slots or transport rules and neither the rhino nor the Tactical detachment has a rule that allows them to be purchased together even if there are no Transport slots or special rules. Maybe the mission they played had a special rule or the Garrison Force will be changed in the expansion book or they just made a mistake, no idea

Going on the rules being mentioned/used (or not) I suspect the game was written in its entirety, and then Mr. DLC entered the room and started editing which rules item was going to be in which release. That would explain why there are things like formations used in the battle report that aren't even in the first expansion.
With a rulebook of that page count (I believe I have read 100+ pages of rules with fairly dense text?) there are bound to be bits missed that should in the 2nd or 3rd expansion, for example.

The way I see it is that the core book goes further than most GW games, which is one bloody expensive rules-only book that then requires at least one other suchbook, to even begin looking at what units you can put on the table.

Although I'm not jumping in with Legions for the moment, the one-off £37.50 direct-only price would work out at £18.75 for the core rules and another £18.75 for a very healthy list of units and a hobby section. At that point one might then continue with additional books, or find that they'd like to explore Titanicus and Aeronautica, which are equally generous in getting new players started with their core rule books.

 Pacific wrote:
Going on the rules being mentioned/used (or not) I suspect the game was written in its entirety, and then Mr. DLC entered the room and started editing which rules item was going to be in which release. That would explain why there are things like formations used in the battle report that aren't even in the first expansion.
With a rulebook of that page count (I believe I have read 100+ pages of rules with fairly dense text?) there are bound to be bits missed that should in the 2nd or 3rd expansion, for example.

*conspiracy theory*

Maybe they recalled the rulebook as it had too many rules in it

@Matrindur: thanks for the details & analysis.

Really looking forward to Mechanicum myself. Maybe its in this scale I shall do them..

I wonder if we'll later on have some way for Astartes to include Mechanicum units That are organic and not as Allies. Similar to the Praevian, Forge Lord consuls & the Brethren of Iron RoW in big 30k.

Assuming they ever come.

Even mentions in rules isn't quarantee models will come or in what timeframe but one can hope.

Mechanicum appearing in LI would bode well for plastic Mechanicum also in 28mil. As I want those Thallax for my Angels, preferably in both scales, I would like this very much!

I can’t see them not having some kind of plan to do Mechanicum.

True but timeframe is another

Rules have hinted at Emperor in hh for years. No sight of him yet.

Got my pre-order in with Dark Sphere and picking up the SA of a mate's box set which I think leaves me in a good enough spot to start playing the game.

I watched the GMG reviews and bat rep and I have to say I am on board with the game. I really enjoy the building hopping and combat mechanics.

I may have to house rule the titans though, taking all the fire at once instead of weapon by weapon like in AT is silly imo.