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Fellow Dakkaites, I invite you to discuss here about the 10th edition mini-codex relased today for the Imperial Guard.

Here is the document :
https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/xOjVS3Asx2QJ13lk.pdf

As the discussion will evolve, I plan to organize the original message with an index and links to all the developments within the thread, also relevant articles and tacticas published elsewhere.



REVIEWS
Goonshammer has already published a review :
https://www.goonhammer.com/the-goonhammer-review-the-10th-edition-astra-militarum-index/

Personal takes, from me at least, are that it shows an extremely disappointing lack of knowledge of their own kits. Jes Goodwin made a comment back in the "Designing Skitarii" video that he makes the various model designers build the kit from the test sprues, to make sure it's not a mess. I think the same thing needs to be implemented for the rules team going forward.

I already sent in a batch of stuff for errata, but I think most people who have followed my posting career here can guess most of it lol.

All that said? I like the Sentinels a lot!

With the standard caveat that we don't know points yet... here are my hot takes:

Orders seem clean and simple. they still occur in the command phase, so no orders to deep strikers or guys dumped out of transports. But a simple +1 BS, +1 WS, +1 Save, +1 LD/OC, +1 shot with lasguns/plasma, and +3 move are all fine bonuses.

Born Soldiers only working if stationary bloooows. It also encourages the worst kind of gunline behavior.

Kind of bummed we can't double up on characters, like Space Marine Lieutenants can. Unless way, way cheaper, hard to see including commissars.

Ogryn look great. Bullgryn look weaker, with max 4+ saves. OTOH, AP-1 and D2 isn't as ignorable profile as in 9th.

Ratlngs get AP-2 and D2, plus heavy. might be spicy if cheap.

Rough riders look great. Lance, fall back and charge, and no real loss from 9th.

20 man squads! Sticky objectives are.. fine.

Catachans seem to have at least have a purpose as scouts.

Tank Commanders shoot on death at full BS!

Psykers really buff some durability, but there might not be a unit that really benefits from it.

Ogryn bodyguards, if the right price might be good given the sheer amount of Precision out there.

Kasrkin get one Order free, can take a second one with vox, scout 6",

Sentinels are also spicy. Tougher, both orders key words, and either a nice little buff against hard targets or the ability to "spot" for indirect fire... looks fun!

Heavy weapons and artillery seem fine. Heavy weapons getting better overwatch is nice. Artillery will sink or swim based on points, since there is a lot of overlap between them and other options.

I can't wait to spend more time just ranking the Leman Russes. Early winners seem to be demolishers, battle tanks, and... exterminators????

Basilisk is a pure anti-heavy infantry beat stick. -2 move/advance/charge is nice, as is the damage profile. The Manticore has classic anti-synergy by being anti-elite infantry while getting a bonus against units of six or more models. Still, as part of a turn one against a three wound unit with character... could be fire.

Hyrda is really good at hitting fliers. Then it's S9 and AP-1, and only four shots, but whatever.

Chimera with a basic command squad might be a thing, right? Can dish an order, shoot two guns out the hatch, maybe? Again, depends on price.

Taurox, for when you don't want to deepstrike, but really want to propel a unit forward. And not get orders. I dunno.

Somebody smarter than me will need to explain why you'd want to deploy Scions from a Valkyrie on your opponents turn. I does allow them to use orders, so that's nice. But I feel like i"m missing something.

Baneblades give cover, which is kinda cool. Aside from that, it's all about crunching hte numbers between it, Russes, and Dorns to see what work best.

Banehammer has firing Deck 12 and triggers battleshock on it's target and everything else in 3". Not a lot in our army cares about battleshock, so I guess it's an Okay.

the banesword makes stuff blow up on a 3+, which is hilarious and might make me remember that it's a unit in our codex.

hellhammer can shoot normally while engaged, which is a pretty neat ability on an OC8, T13, 24wound tank. Don't' try it against heavy knights, but against anything S12 or below.. could be fun.

Shadowsword gets hazardous wounds against monsters and vehicles, which is funny, because I like the idea of a brick of Deathguard terminators just shrugging it off while (on a six) a tank just explodes.

Stormlord can have a Friendly unit mount up in the enemy movement phase, which is actually pretty awesome. Then you remember it has firing deck 24, and nothing should need to get out unless it's tagging and objective... so...

Scions are basically the same, I guess. Reroll ones, and full rerolls against units on an objective, are a nice rule for a more aggressive unit. Scion command probably will never issue orders if they attach, but that does allow for a bigger, nastier squad. Also, Scions can be recycled with "Reinforcements" if you have a lot of command points.

Overall, the synergy seems to be to use Scout sentinels, expert bombardiers and Fields of fire to allow Basilisks, Manticores, and artillery to blast the hell out of enemy infantry. I also think a mixed armored company could be really nice. Exterminators to give AP1, Battletanks to clear objectives, Demolishers and Dorns for heavy lifting. Infantry aren't bad, but I think even 20 man squads will just be picked up en masse. We'll see.

I do not understand the love for the Russ Battle Tank.

D6+3 shots, rerolling 1s normally and rerolling all against a unit on an objective averages 6 shots, 4 hits without the +1 to hit order, 5 with.

S10 AP-1 3 Damage. You wound most Infantry on 2s yes.

With Armor saves, that's 4-5 GEQ, 2 Marines, and a single Terminator.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Neat little thingy:
the Hydras ability as it is worded does not seem to be limited to the Autocannons. So the Heavy Bolter and Hunter Killer Missile reroll their hit roll too, which is nice.
Also an interesting synergy with the Leman Russ Exterminator which is described as being used as stop-gap air defense: you can shoot a heavy flyer with the Exterminator and by that kick up all your Hydras attacks against that flyer to AP-2

Exterminator is S tier unit now. That is a sight to see, knowing how it has been over the years.

Arcanis161 wrote:
I do not understand the love for the Russ Battle Tank.

D6+3 shots, rerolling 1s normally and rerolling all against a unit on an objective averages 6 shots, 4 hits without the +1 to hit order, 5 with.

S10 AP-1 3 Damage. You wound most Infantry on 2s yes.

With Armor saves, that's 4-5 GEQ, 2 Marines, and a single Terminator.

Is there something I'm missing here?

You're missing Blast.
And that S10 is not supposed to be used against troops, counter to the fact that it has Blast.
So, combining the two (S10 and Blast) it is to be used against units of >5 models, with Mid-to-high-T.
Meaning it has few ideal targets. Most other LR tanks have better specialisations, and the LRBT is a 'master-of-none'.

On top of that, the LR chassis vehicles lost their 'shoot twice' ability.

You need to think in more of a combined arms approach for things like the battlecannon. Sure, base it may not do much. But once you start layering in buffs it can get quite decent. Shoot it at some marines on an objective, so reroll hits. Buff bs to 3+ with an order. Remove cover with a hellhound. -1 ap with an exterminator or fields of fire, or -2 with both.

Suddenly your mediocre weapon is slapping things. And a lot of those are debuffs on the enemy unit, so you can unload multiple units with those buffs.

Scions being an OC1 (conditional) battleline unit feels like a real kick in the family jewels. If you want them to be OC2 you have to attach a command squad (!) with a regimental standard. You will note the other battleline infantry units are OC2.

And yes, you can attach command squads to units, its absolutely bizarre but its legit and you get to attach an additional character (which seems to just be Psykers, Preachers, and Commissars as far as Tempestus are concerned). If I'm understanding correctly, you can also join a Regimental Attache unit to a Command Squad unit that is joined to another unit, as well as an Ogryn Bodyguard/Loyal Protector. So you can conceivably add 10 models on to any unit via the double attachment rule that a number of units have.

A bit annoyed that now attaches are a 3 model unit though instead of being individual characters like previous editions. Going to need to pick up some extra MoOs and Astropaths as I only have Officers of the Fleet.

Scions being capped to units of 10 is a bit annoying - I know thats how it always was, but before I could field more than 6 units of them, so something like half my Scions can't be Scions anymore. Since they are third party minis anyway maybe I'll just make them Infantry Squads instead of running them as Tempestus? Or maybe I supplement my 6 Scion units with 3 Kasrkin units? I dunno, bit of a bummer. Also annoying is that you're capped at 1 of each special weapon per 5 models, instead of 2 each - but only scions, regular infantry squads don't have this limitation at all(Cadian/Death Korps do, but per 10 models) and Kasrkin are allowed 2 each regardless of the size of the unit.

Oh, and grenade launchers are finally useful!

The Cadia stands rule on cadian command squads seems like such a powerful rule. Being able to ignore things like movement modfiers, hit and wound roll modifiers, and stuff like nurgle toughness modifiers is so good. I think Cadians are the best troops now, just from this perspective. Dkok and catachans have a place too, although I see dkok being more points than Cadians.

One thing though, does cadia stands nullify the OC reduction from battleshock? Or does it only work against "modifiers", and battleshock is a set-to-value, not a modifier?

On aos side set value isn't modifier.

Been trying to figure out on 10e rules but haven"t found clear answer yet.

I'm running my first 10th Edition battle tomorrow. 2000 points, Only War mission from the CRB, my opponent is Space Marines and I expect Phobos + Gravis with some tank support (the player is a big fan of this setup). My army will be 3x3 Scout Sentinels (LC+HK), 3 Manticores, Lord Solar, Platoon Command Squad (with Grand Strategist), Gaunt's Ghosts, 4x DKoK, 3x Kasrkin (2x Plasma, 2x Volleygun), 2x Navy Breachers (held in Reserves to come in the 3rd round for some backstabbing action), Vindicare. Plan is simple: push forward with Sentinels, Kasrkin, and Ghosts, and bomb the ever-living gak out of everyone with the Manticores. Wish me luck guys.

How'd it go?

Couple of questions,
1. Does a command squads medipack confer to the entire unit its attached to
2. Does a stormtrooper unit give the ogryn bodyguard or the commisar deep strike?

Hecate wrote:
How'd it go?

We called a draw after 4 hours and played until the end of the 4th turn. He was leading 8-7 but he literally had 6 models remaining on the board in total while I had minimal losses.

The enemy army was originally Roboute, 4x5 Heavy Intercessors, 2x10 Infiltrators, 2 Eliminators, 1 Phobos Captain, 1 Warsuit, 2 Lancers, and 1 Suppressors. After my opponent saw my army he asked me if he could replace 1 Lancer with 1 Hammerstrike and I agreed because he looked really disheartened from me not bringing any tanks and pretty much soft-countering his list. The battlefield was fairly dense with one huge ruin in the middle, 3-3 smaller ones in the deployment zones, and a bunch of barricades in between. We both deployed in two blobs: I had the Solar, the Manticores, and most of my DKoK in-and-behind one ruin, and the Sentinels and the Kasrkin on my left, while he deployed his Phobos in the central ruin facing my Kasrkin and the rest on the edge of his deployment zone facing my Lord Solar. We both redeployed (me from Solar and him from the Captain) but nothing really changed, there was mostly just some reshuffling so that his Warsuit covered the Infiltrators better and I had my Sentinels spread out a little more.

So yeah, lemme break out this one immediately: if the game is less lethal then I didn't notice it. I had the first turn and took a big fat dump on the entire Phobos complement, it was a massacre. All my opponent could do was to Smokescreen his Warsuit but it was little use as it had to survive 6 LC and 6 HK hitting on 4+ and re-rolling 1s - he had a pretty hot hand with the saves but it was just too much. The Infiltrators survived on 4 and 3 models after eating double-buffed Kasrkin and all 3 Manticores but the Ghosts failed their charge so the Infiltrators lived to see the next turn (and score a VP lead as they were sitting on my second objective). A highlight of the turn was the Vindicare sniping the Phobos Captain with Shieldbreaker - Precision is no joke as it turned out.

Two things to point out here: Scout Sentinels benefit from their own abilities (re-roll 1s vs an enemy unit) and Manticores are T10. That latter came in handy because both the Hammerstrike and the Suppressors had S9 guns, so when they came down they only managed to blow up 1 Manticore and put a few Wounds into another. Unfortunately, Roboute and his Gravis blob returned the favor for the Phobos massacre and quite literally cleaved through the center of my army, with Roboute solo'ing my entire command section (10-strong DKoK with Solar and Command Squad attached). But that was the end, with (unhurt) Roboute, 1 Suppressor, 3 Eliminators (his home objective campers who were about to get blasted by my Navy Breachers), and 1 Heavy Intercessor remaining from my opponent's army while I lost my command section, 2 Manticores, 1 Sentinel squadron, and a bunch of Kasrkin. So we agreed to a draw because we would have traded home objectives but I had my no-mans-land objective while he didn't.

Overall, all my units were solid, and the Kasrkin were awesome. Hitting on 2+ and doing FRFSRF at the same time was hot. My only real disappointment was the stratagems, I never even thought about using them, my CP went to Grenades + Command Re-roll (in my turn) and then Smokescreen (in the enemy turn). Lord Solar feels like a must-take and so is the Master Vox for the 24" Order range, these two together were pretty much game-winning. The Ghosts were also very good because they have Lone Operative and a 4-shot autocannon, and I even forgot to use their teleport ability. Oh, and Orders feel pretty darn important, don't sleep on them. I had 7 orders per turn and I wished I had more. I felt like 4 DKoK units were too much as they did jack during the entire battle, but I didn't face Desolators so maybe they would have been more valuable if my opponent leaned more into anti-infantry. Also, you guys probably guessed it, but game-deciding Alpha Strikes are alive and well in 10th edition too.

How much indirect weapons you had to do that much damage t1? Or was your terrain too light? Armies should hide out of los t1.

tneva82 wrote:
How much indirect weapons you had to do that much damage t1? Or was your terrain too light? Armies should hide out of los t1.

My opponent banked on getting the first turn (we both did), but he didn't, and the redeploy from the Phobos Captain could only do so much (especially since I could counter-redeploy with Lord Solar). But it didn't really matter because my Kasrkin and Sentinels all had Scout so there was no escape, I could have easily moved up to get LoS on his units even if he had tried to hide them.

Otherwise, yeah, alpha strikes of this magnitude seem to be a thing. There was another game between Sisters and Votann at the same time, and the exact same thing happened there too: the Sisters rushed in for the kill and crippled the Votann with a strong alpha strike (Retributors in Immolators) that had no real counterplay other than the Votann player Smokescreening their Land Fortress and hoping for the best.

Hide behind ruin? Here you don't shoot t1 enemy key units t1 without no-los weapons.

tneva82 wrote:
Hide behind ruin? Here you don't shoot t1 enemy key units t1 without no-los weapons.

I could have moved into the ruin t1 with everything and just shoot him through it.

 AtoMaki wrote:
My opponent banked on getting the first turn (we both did), but he didn't, and the redeploy from the Phobos Captain could only do so much (especially since I could counter-redeploy with Lord Solar).

Isn't Leontus's redeploy done before rolling for who goes first?

 Trickstick wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
My opponent banked on getting the first turn (we both did), but he didn't, and the redeploy from the Phobos Captain could only do so much (especially since I could counter-redeploy with Lord Solar).

Isn't Leontus's redeploy done before rolling for who goes first?

That's awkward because it is but we thought it worked the same as the Phobos Captain's Master of Deception. Oopsie ...

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
My opponent banked on getting the first turn (we both did), but he didn't, and the redeploy from the Phobos Captain could only do so much (especially since I could counter-redeploy with Lord Solar).

Isn't Leontus's redeploy done before rolling for who goes first?

That's awkward because it is but we thought it worked the same as the Phobos Captain's Master of Deception. Oopsie ...

Eh, it happens. The fun of new rules. Leontus's ability is useful but nowhere near as powerful as after deciding first turn.

Big hater of the new profile for the Hotshot Lasgun, personally, and given it's the basic weapon of one of my armies...

Valkyries dropping thing right in range of your enemy to blow them to bit or chop them to bits is a weird idea, too.

Due to covid, then school, then a long distance move I've been gone from 40k for a while so I figured the first thing I should do when I get my army unpacked is unload some exterminatus grade heresy onto the guard forum: Twin linked AC>Twin linked lascannon & tank commander with a demolisher cannon is a 20 point downgrade until we get our codex. I"m rusty and I could be wrong, but here goes.

1st AC vs LC: I think the current balanced is perfect and they are worth the same number of points. All of that being said the LC is better choice for IG because our index is loaded with effective anti light vehicle/heavy infantry firepower, but TL benefits AC far more than LC and makes it a better all comers choice for an IG list than a TL LC. The TL taking the AC from 33% to 55% chance to wound a heavy vehicle does more than taking a LC from 66% to 89% Before armor saves are taken into account that's 6 wounds at 55% vs 4.5 wounds at 89%. The LC still has better armor pen, but guard now has multiple shenanigans to improve AP so an AC gains far more by going from -1 to -2 than a LC does going from -3 to -4. Against super heavies the TL AC vs TL LC gap is smaller because they will have a 4+ or 5+ invulnerable making any extra AP on a LC wound irrelevant and now it's 6 wounds at 55% vs 4.5 wounds at 75%. The same super heavy logic applies to greater deamons. Hydras and Exterminators are going to be deadly in 10th, and armored sentinels would also probably be better off with AC over LC.

Next lets talk tanks. This edition looks highly mobile with lots of transports, objective control, and lots of fast movers. If you up against an equally skilled opponent they will find a way to tag a 240 point tank and lock it down in CC. The inability to fire blast into CC means the tank commander will not be able to swat aside a squad like the regular demolisher can. Lord Solar can crank out 3 orders to vehicles already so 1 order and death befitting an officer has the following costs.

Spending 45 points and loosing full rerolls to hit against enemies on an objective
Spending 20 points and losing the ability to fire a demolisher cannon into CC and ignore the -1 to hit while in CC
Spending 60 points and losing the ability to fire an eradicator cannon into CC and ignore the -1 to hit while in CC
Spending 25 points and losing the weak sauce executioner +1 to hit on near dead units ok that's not much of a loss
Spending 40 points and losing the additional -1 to armor saves on all future attacks...big oooof
Spending 60 points and having the punisher cannon lose devastating wounds
Spending 50 points, losing the reroll to wound with the vanquisher cannon, and being stuck with a vanquisher cannon in the 1st place.

I don't see a tank commander being competitive against Lord Solar being able to give orders to 3 tanks. The exterminator doesn't lose much by switching over to a tank commander and the plasma cannon is still good, but the abilities in relation to the cost of the other options is just better. I see the Vanilla, Demolisher, Eradicator, Executioner, all being very well internally balanced against each other for the points within the index, the Exterminator and Punisher being a bit anemic, and only the and vanquisher being bad so over all I think 10th ed is very well written.

There is an incredibly easy fix for this we can hope to address in the codex: Make tank commander a 20-30 point upgrade that can be taken 3 times in a list. Without that the single order and death befitting an officer is not worth losing the special ability of the base tank except on the worst tanks that we would not take anyways.

For those of you who have played a game, how does Infantry AT fare? 3/4s of my squads (2 CST, 1 "Kasrkin") have an AT loadout - plasma and melta. From what I've read in the core rules, they'd be wounding tanks on 5s.

I would not consider either plasma or melta to be anti-tank weapons in 10e, they were already barely AT weapons in 9e, now they are best used against heavy infantry, though the melta has some game vs light vehicles. The only true AT weapon infantry squads have access to now is lascannons.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
For those of you who have played a game, how does Infantry AT fare?

It is lascannons (and HK missiles) or bust. Those plasma+melta squads are anti-MEQ/TEQ now.

+1 to wound is really good against armour, and we only have 3 sources of it that I can find.

The first is an ogryn bodyguard in combat when the officer is wounded, so pretty niche.

The second is rough riders. Melta rough riders will make short work of a tank if you manage to get a charge off, although that can sometimes be difficult.

The last is dkok under half strength. I think I may try to build around this somewhat, using melta as one of the types of specials I take. Melta wounding on a 5 is not great, but wounding on a 4 against t17 is usable. Reliably getting to under half strength may be an issue, but medpack healing is worded as "up to 1d3", so you would never be forced to lose the buff.

Oof. Thanks for the advice, everyone. My usual opponent is also Guard, so he'll be struggling with the same things - though he fields Armigers.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Oof. Thanks for the advice, everyone. My usual opponent is also Guard, so he'll be struggling with the same things - though he fields Armigers.

LC+HK Scout Sentinels slap so if you see your opponent pulling out their Sentinel collection then your tanks are in danger.