5 May 2016

Warhammer 40,000 FAQ Main Points

Hey guys, got a quick little update; the FAQ drafts for the Warhammer 40,000 core rulebook (not the codices) are up now on their Facebook page! I made some quick impressions for these and my gut reactions, excuse the bad grammar and overuse of capitalization - I'm very tired and excitable at the time of writing! These are my biggest take-aways from the FAQ....some are truly ground-shaking. Witchfires that have no profile hit automatically - this most prominently includes Psychic Shriek. Flying Monstrous Creatures and all Gargantuan Creatures can't claim cover by simply standing in terrain. Units can only use a single Grenade in the Assault Phase just like the Shooting Phase. The debate about Gargantuan Creatures firing two or more weapons has finally been settled - they shoot all of them, not just two (the common sense ruling thankfully - no offence to those that believed otherwise but how on earth did you honestly think that the Stormsurge was given eight weapons and intended only to use two at a time?) Tau Battlesuits now benefit from their Multi-Trackers when firing Overwatch. Skyfiring Blast and Template weapons can hit Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures. Solo models can charge multiple units at the same time as a disordered charge. Special rules that specify "the unit" now affect attached Independent Characters. The dreaded "1+ Feel No Pain" is no more. Battle Brothers can't deploy inside of each others' transports. I think I can say this with all honesty; the landscape of 7th Edition has been irrevocably changed, and this is just the beginning as we still don't have the army-specific updates. I am very interested in reading your reactions to the FAQ and the changes/clarifications they have made, there's too much to take in right now but I'm definitely going to be debating these for a while to come. Have at it and thank you for reading my incoherent ramblings!

Editors' Note: Apologies for the text format, copy-pasting from Facebook does not work well apparently. Damned text backgrounds.


FAQ Summary of Main Points

Key things; witchfires with no profiles ala Psychic Shriek DO NOT roll to hit. The Maleceptor literally doubled in usefulness.
Lance VS Quantum Shielding cancel each other out and force the vehicle to use its base armor value. This is actually worse for Necrons as it means they will be AV11 against Lance weapons rather than AV12.

You get the effects of abilities tied to weapons that state "the wielder of this weapon" regardless of whether you are actually using them, meaning a Daemon can gain the benefits of the Eternal Blade but use a different weapon simultaneously.

You no longer re-roll failed Gets Hot rolls for blast/template weapons with Gets Hot if you have re-rolls to-hit as the Gets Hot roll is not a to-hit roll. 
You no longer get to benefit from "extra inches" due to pivoting a vehicle before moving it. 

Clarification that Beasts and Cavalry do indeed strike at Initiative 1 when charging through terrain. 
Vertical movement doesn't count towards total movement for jump and jet pack movement. 

Abilities that affect units within a certain range DO NOT work from inside vehicles unless specified otherwise. 
Units exiting a Deep Striking transport on the turn they arrive count as Deep Striking themselves. 
All models - regardless of type or size - can move on any level of ruins or buildings as long as they can physically fit there. Hooray for Bikes!

HOLY MOLY - Gargantuan Creatures and Flying Monstrous Creatures no longer gain cover from having their toes in cover!
You can't move "through" the walls of a ruin as if it is just difficult terrain, you have to go around them. 

You can't take a cover save/invulnerable save for a model before a Void Shield is stripped in the case of Void Shield Generators. 
It seems like destroying units via Tank Shock is impossible now unless they do the whole Death or Glory thing. 
Tank and Heavy bonuses for Ramming don't stack, poor Leman Russes. 
Thunderblitzing does force Super Heavies to Snap Shot. 

You have to select all targets for your weapons with a Super Heavy Vehicle before firing any of them, meaning you don't do the "one at a time" stuff. Seems like my original thoughts on the matter were accurate.
Super Heavy Walkers aren't limited to the 45 degree arc of fire that Walkers are, and Super Heavy Flyers cannot Jink! 
Diagonal measurements for working out ranges for shooting attacks are a thing now. 

If a model has multiple saves, you get to choose which one you think is the best to use. 
Modifiers from identical psychic powers don't stack, meaning no double +1 invulnerable save bonuses and so on.

Multiple Independent Character psykers in the same unit can't cast the same psychic powers.....ouch. EDIT: An entry later in the FAQ says otherwise. Wut. Editing errors? 
Brotherhood of Pyskers units now fully benefit from powers that specify "the psyker", meaning - for example - a unit of Thousand Sons with Iron Arm would all become Strength 7 and Toughness 7 - yowza!

Psykers can only cast as many powers as they have Mastery Levels, meaning Fateweaver can only ever cast four powers and so on. 
Summoning a Bloodthirster through Malefic Daemonology lets you use any of the profiles barring Skarbrand, that's an upgrade alright. 
Tau just got mega-buffed; models fire as many weapons in Overwatch as they can in the Shooting Phase, meaning all Battlesuits now fire two weapons in Overwatch! Yowza!
Hellstrike Missiles got buffed as you can fire them all at full Ballistic Skill simultaneously, though other weapons still have to Snap Shot. 

You can Jink against Beams.
Gargantuan Creatures FINALLY roll 3D6 for moving through cover and double the highest result, somewhat makes up for losing "toe in terrain" cover saves. 
Finally, a full damned clarification that Gargantuan Creatures shoot ALL of their weapons at different targets, not just just two. Thank goodness that argument is done now.

Blast/Template weapons with Skyfire can hit Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures and Zooming Flyers. 0.o Wut. That means that a Stormsurge with a Velocity Tracker can fire its main cannon at both types of aerial units.....crikey. Nova powers hit them as well but not Beams. You also can't Jink and then Vector Strike. 

Monstrous Creatures (and Gargantuan Creatures by extension as they follow the rules for Monstrous Creatures) can charge multiple units. That's insane. A Tyranid Hierophant could literally charge half of an army in one turn. 

You can now officially mount models on whatever base suits your fancy, though you are supposed to put them on the bases they come with. I call shenanigans! 
Weapons on Flyers are assumed to "swivel" 45 degrees up or down to better hit targets beneath them. 

Wings on Flyers count as part of the hull for all purposes. 
Spore Mines and other such units still count for destroying units on Tactical Objective cards....ouch. 
Transports that Jink force the occupants to Snap Shot in their Shooting phase. 
No bombing runs after Jinking, sad face. 
You can use the Wall of Death against Invisibility. 

You can hit Invisible units with Template/Blast/Nova/Beam attacks as long as they aren't the primary target, meaning that if you put a Template over both an Invisible unit and a regular unit with the regular unit being the primary target and covering as many models in the regular unit as possible, you still hit the Invisible unit. Basically, Hellstorm weapons for the win. 

Units with Infiltrate are no longer forced to set up via Infiltrate, meaning they can choose to deploy normally. 
Scout moves are done after Seize the Initiative rolls. 
Grey Knight players rejoice, Independent Characters from outside a Nemesis Strike Force can join a unit from the Nemesis Strike Force and Deep Strike on turn one with them. 

This one is massive; special rules applying to " the unit" now affect attached independent characters, meaning you can have a Captain Deep Strike and charge with Skyhammer Annihilation Force Assault Marines or give an Imperial character the effects of Dunestrider by joining up with some Sicarians. Yikes. 

Confusion on whether a unit can attack a model that has no friends in the combat in a challenge, answer seems to be no which makes challenges so much better and worse in many ways. The whole "Bloodthirster charges a unit, is forced to fight one dude" crap returns!
Yeah, scrap that - the entire Independent Characters page is riddled with errors. Wait for an update there. 

Defensive Grenades no longer affect Hammer of Wrath, Furious Charge, etc but still affect Rage. 
Grenades just got MEGA nerfed, like holy moly what a change. A unit can only use one grenade in the Assault phase. Wow. Vehicles go vroom vroom and Walkers just leaped for joy! Damn. This might be the biggest change in the FAQs honestly. 

You use majority armor saves for working out how to wound with Graviton weapons, just like majority Toughness. 
Graviton and Haywire attacks are NOT armor penetration rolls. 

Flyers that are forced to move in a specific way and subsequently land on an enemy unit aren't destroyed, they use "wobbly model syndrome" rulings instead - you put them where they will fit. 
Bombers get hit hard again - no Bombing Runs on the turn you leave the battlefield. 

On the flip side, Bombing Runs can target units locked in combat. Whoop whoop! 
No more 1+ Feel No Pain, it gets maxed out at 2+. Huzzah! 
No more Deep Striking replaced units that themselves did not Deep Strike in the game, very specifically working against the Skyblight Swarm. 

Battle Brothers can't embark on each others' transports during deployment....meaning no more putting non-Space Marine Imperial units in Drop Pods or Wraithguard in Dark Eldar Raiders. Damn. 

You can indeed roll Look Out Sir against both Stomps and Destroyer Weapons. 
Regarding Wall of Death and Template weapons, Template weapons now inflict D3 automatic hits per shot on the profile rather than just D3 for the weapon as a whole. The Tau Y'Vahra is laughing to the moon and back. 

7 comments:

  1. I think the grenades in combat is one of the biggest ones! This dramatically increases the durability of vehicles in combat as my marines are going to have to rely on their base strength to take them out.

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    1. Yeah, and dramatically reduces the value of 'buy grenades for the whole unit' upgrades.

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    2. I see it as GW basically saying "buy melta bombs on all your Sergeants". Buffs to vehicles are much appreciated but I wouldn't be surprised if this was a knee-jerk reaction to Swooping Hawks.

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  2. RE battle brothers and transports, it makes sense really. As nice as it is to have non-SM in a drop pod, I'm surely they'd be pulped by the tremendous forces without the genetically engineered fortitude of an SM.

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    1. Agreed, I was also simply getting sick of everyone using Flesh Tearers as the "taxi service Chapter" while this also tones down a lot of the more extreme combos.

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  3. Regarding toe-cover for MCs, that's COMPLETELY wrong as it only applies to (Swooping) FMCs, Flyers, Super Heavy Vehicles and GMC:


    Q: Do Flyers, Super-heavy vehicles, Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures and Gargantuan Creatures gain cover while standing on the ‘base’ of a terrain piece, e.g. ruins or dense thickets, or do they need to be at least 25% obscured by the scenery for cover to apply?
    A: The 25% rule applies in all types of terrain if the target is a Flyer, Super-heavy Vehicle, Flying Monstrous Creature or Gargantuan Creature. All other targets count as being in cover if they are in or on the terrain’s base, even if not 25% obsured

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    1. Apologies for my comment not being more specific, I tend to refer to all monstrous creatures - flying or ground - as just monstrous creatures. I've edited the post to clarify.

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