Improved bolters

[WickedJester1013]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/01/21/21st-jan-introducing-better-beta-boltersgw-homepage-post-4/

 

Was looking at this the other day and didn't see a topic on here about it.

Thoughts on how it helps deathguard?

[Wolf Lord Loki]

The big issue I have is it is limited to: BIKES, CENTURIONS, TERMINATORS and VEHICLES

 

Which makes blightlords even better but doesn't do a lot for the rest of the army (seeing how often do you see Bolter armed vehicles?)

 

Plus given we rapid fire at 18" even on the move which is almost the same, it probably only has a negligible impact on the army

[WickedJester1013]

It doesn’t just apply to those units. If you read closely it says if ANY of the conditions apply.

[Halandaar]

The big issue I have is it is limited to: BIKES, CENTURIONS, TERMINATORS and VEHICLES

 

Which makes blightlords even better but doesn't do a lot for the rest of the army (seeing how often do you see Bolter armed vehicles?)

 

Plus given we rapid fire at 18" even on the move which is almost the same, it probably only has a negligible impact on the army

 

It doesn't only apply to these units; it applies to any unit that is within half-range with it's Bolters OR stays still in the movement phase OR is a Biker/Centurion/Terminator/Vehicle 

 

So Plague Marines gain the benefit if stationary, and Blightlords get the benefit at all times because they are <Terminators>

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Okay.

 

So bolters are rapid fire weapons so double the shots at half range

 

This rule replaces the rapid fire rule and doubles the shots. Yes or no?

[Arkhanist]

It replaces the rapid fire rule for marines - but just expands the conditions under which it applies.

 

rapid fire used to be (and still is for everyone else)

1) double shots at half range.

 

Now for astartes & heretic astartes with rapid fire bolt weapons:

1) double shots at half range OR

2) double shots at full range if didn't move OR

3) double shots all the time if terminator/bike/vehicle/centurion

 

So it doesn't apply to cultists despite the keyword, because they don't have bolters. Presumably inexorable advance still applies; so plague marines can always fire twice at up to 18", or up to 24" if they didn't move when using bolters. Blight lords and vehicles with combi bolters always fire twice at any range (i.e 4 shots total per), but heavy bolters don't benefit because they're not rapid fire weapons.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

So if I understand it correctly for marines in general it only effects the number of shots in the 12-24" range (because if they move they can still use rapid fire at under 12")

 

Terminators and vehicles basically rapid fire the whole time

 

Death guard only improve their effectiveness by 6" (the 18-24" mark)

[Panzer]

So if I understand it correctly for marines in general it only effects the number of shots in the 12-24" range (because if they move they can still use rapid fire at under 12")

 

Terminators and vehicles basically rapid fire the whole time

 

Death guard only improve their effectiveness by 6" (the 18-24" mark)

Exactly.

[DemetriiTZ]

So, attended a double's tournament with my wife recently -- we were both much more involved in competitive 40K in 4th, 5th, and 6th, but dropped out of 7th due to work and life changes. I have been getting back into 40K, but my wife's first foray into "competitive" 40K in 8th was this past Sunday, and while the event was largely very casual and relaxed, an unexpected opportunity for some stress tests actually popped up: one team failed to make it, so a stand-in player decided to simply build a single 2,000 PT army and fill in, choosing to play T'au.

 

Our army was:

Death Guard Battalion: +5 CP

 

HQ:

Daemon Prince: 195

*Wings

*Spewer

*Sword/Talon

*Supp. Plate

*Arch-Contaminator

 

Necrosius: 135

 

TROOPS:

 

6 x 7 Plague Marines: 134

*2 x Blight Launcher

*1 x Combibolter

 

Nurgle Battalion: +5 CP

 

HQ:

 

Poxbringer x 2: 70

 

TROOPS:

 

5 x 7 Plague Marines: 134

*2 x Blight Launcher

*1 x Combibolter

 

ELITE:

 

Noxious Blightbringer: 55

*Plasma Pistol

*Tocsin of Misery

 

1999, 13 CP, Miasma, Blades, Vitality, Gift, Withering Curse, Fleshy Abundance as powers known, 1 CP on Fugaris' Helm for Blightbringer as needed in order to buff aura to 10''.

 

 

____________________________________________

 

I'll spare you all the details regarding our games against 2000 of Orks, and 1000 of GSC + 1000 of Orks -- Plague Marines rolled through both armies (120 and 140 bodies, respectively) with contemptuous ease. The T'au game, however, was clearly going to be a little more of an issue, especially considering his army was purposefully designed to be the standard Riptide-spam cheese, which he claimed he brought because he "was lazy and did not feel like being creative".

 

His army was (from memory) 22 Shield Drones, 2 Technical Drones, 3 HBC Riptides with ATC/VelTracker, Darkstrider, Shadowsun, Ethereal, 2 Coldstar Fusion Commanders (3x Fusion each), 6 x 5 Firewarriors, and 2 x 5 Pathfinders + 2 Fireblades. I have no idea how they were arranged (I'm familiar with T'au, but not THAT familiar), and we were dropped onto a table with fairly decent LOS blocking terrain (5 small buildings, 3 big ones in the middle with gaps in between, and some scattered rubble here and there.) The deployment was 12'' standard, and we were playing the ITC mission with 4 objectives, with players choosing 2 as "primary".

 

So, as a simple attempt to see how an army with basically nothing but Plague Marines would do, we dumped all 77 of 'em into a clump near the middle, and began marching midfield while camping the two objectives on our end of the board. Plague Marines in the previous 2 games did make use of the Bell on Turn 1, but in this game, the T'au deployed as a castle on the opposite side of the board, screening his Tides with FWs and hiding his drones and characters in the backfield. Pathfinders showed up on the flanks of either side of his DZ, in the corners, behind buildings due to the fact that he knew he would probably lose his Turn 1 rolloff (more drops than us), and we had deployed 2 Plague Marine squads on either side of our DZ to counterdeploy.

 

Sure enough, Death Guard got Turn 1, and we decided to use the Betabolters which had, so far, done a fine job of butchering their way through waves and waves of infantry vs Orks and GSC, on T'au.

The results were spectacular. Breathtaking. Please understand, they work well enough to warrant a wall of text written while at work, simply because the general consensus on Plague Marines (and Marines in general) is "meh".

 

On our Turn 1, all 11 squads were able to fire Blight Launchers + Bolters into nothing but Riptides and Firewarriors. No easily reachable Drones, no Pathfinders visible, nothing but T7 2+/5++ Tides and T3 Fire Warriors with 3+ saves in cover. Only 5 squads could draw the central Riptide (first one we aimed at) into Rapidfire after moving, but every other squad had a minimum of 10 shots (6 Bolters, 4 Launchers) fired.

 

Results:

 

7 drones dead due to Savior Protocol, 9 wounds inflicted on 'Tide 1, 22 Fire Warriors dead.

 

140ish shots fired.

 

His Turn 1, he was visibly shocked at the damage output within our 18''-23''/24'' stationary bubbles of fire, and attempted to shoot up some squads of Plague Marines in cover. However, because his Pathfinders had to spend a turn climbing a building to line up shots, he only landed scattered Markers. He burned Kau'yon #1 (Shadowsun can call Kau'yon x2 -- Kau'Yon allows every model in the T'au army to reroll EVERYTHING to hit), and combined with C&C Node to make one Riptide reroll all To Wound as well. His Tech. Drone + Stratagem healed his wounded Riptide for 5 wounds total (3+1 Reactor wound stuck, so 'Tide 1 is now at 10W), and all of his firepower combined removed 11 Plague Marines total, but did not manage to actually wipe a squad (we removed casualties after each firing model was finished, so that future Riptides could only fire Smart Missiles at survivors). That's all: 11 Plague Marines, in cover, for 900+ points of Riptides and support firing. His Coldstars had no room to hop into our blob and snipe characters with their 40'' move (we carefully screened our HQs with multiple Plague Marine squads and defensively buffed them with -1 and +1S/T), so they settled for flying up 20'', nuking around 4-5 Plague Marines themselves, and then scooting back to hide behind a wall. From all of his fire combined, he killed 16 Plague Marines out of 77.

 

Turn 2 was worse for him. Undaunted by the healing Riptide (after all, over 1/3rd of his Drones were already gone), we continued doing the standard: we pumped roughly the same amount of shots into Tide #1 as we did previously. Yes, he had killed a few models, but although he had reduced our numbers, everything still alive was within stationary/moving rapidfire range, and our Blight Launchers were all untouched (we had 3 3-man and a 2-man squad, but no Launchers were dead). Another pounding of bolters and launchers killed another 8 Drones, leaving only 1 squad of 6 in Deepstrike reserve by the time we ran out of bullets. More importantly, though, Necrosius strolled up to the closest Coldstar and rolled a double-6 on Smite on his first attempt, and plopped a fat 6 mortal wounds on said Coldstar, blowing it to smithereens. The other 3 Smite attempts failed, but whatever: more importantly, with so many spammed PMs, you don't even need defensive psyker powers: you can just hurl Smites and pretend you're Thousand Sons or something. Once Drones were dead, Riptide #1 kicked the bucket to failing 5 bolter saves (in total) and 3 Blight Launcher saves, even on a 3++. Both squads of Pathfinders were butchered by Bolters, as well as the last remaining Fire Warriors -- he had nothing left on Turn 2 besides characters, a handful of Drones, 2 Riptides, and a Coldstar.

 

His Turn 2 was noticeably less deadly, for the reasons outlined above. He killed 2 of the wounded Plague Marine squads and a few scattered Marines from failed Smart Missile hits, but Resilience carried us. We had roughly 55 Plague Marines remaining at the end.

 

Turn 3, the army marched forward again, firmly securing everything in midfield, and opened up with Smites, Launchers, and even more Bolters. "Don't you want to try charging me," he inquired, desperate pleading in his eyes. "No, you only get 1 shooting phase, just like the rest of us", we replied, and kept firing. Tide #2 fell over, with Tide #3 chugging along on 3 wounds remaining, no more surviving Drones of any kind, and only a few characters hiding behind walls. Guy conceded at this point, and shook hands -- by Turn 4, he would have been completely tabled.

 

Whatever experiences other people have had, 77 Plague Marines just shot TripTide T'au to death on a board with "fair" terrain, and without even standing in cover in order to do it. Death Guard can shoot T'au to death now: with bolters.

 

I hope this serves as inspiration for all of you wishing that Plague Marines were useful: surprise, they are.

 

You just need LOTS.

[happyslugger]

Nice write up.  I am up against my sons Tau this weekend.  Never played them before, but he has two riptides, ghostkeel, some stealth suits, couple of broadsides and other bits and bobs......bucket loads of drones.  

 

I just decided to bring a few toys and have a go and see where I end up.  Got a blight bomb rhino ready, drones with dp following, butcher cannon levy and some -1 to hit tricks.  Not sure how I will get on, but figured if I make him split his marker lights (whilst trying to delete these on my turn) it could make life harder for him.

 

We shall see.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

My experience of tau is identify the squads with marker lights and give them a swift kicking

 

My mate used to have a unit of pathfinders and a unit of marker drones.

The pathfinders set up on the table and the drones deep strike in with crisis suits

 

Lighting up the pathfinders with the rockets from my blight hawlers in turn one worked wonders

[DemetriiTZ]

As I mentioned (somewhere), T'au are a gear check -- if you have enough firepower to kill the Drones through shooting the Riptide, you win. Easy as that.

77 Plague Marines with 22 Blight Launchers and 11 Combibolters pump out 12 Bolters + 4 Launcher shots per squad with rapidfire. 11 of 'em drops around 150-200 shots on a foe, plus whatever Psykers you have hurling smites around. A 2+ save is hard to overcome, but on average, your bolters should drop around 30-50 wounds on a 'Tide if you have that many Plague Marines, and he either saves 'em on a 2+ (and hurts himself when he rolls 1's), or on Drones which he saves on 5's. He has to take the bolter wounds on the 'Tide, because otherwise he'll have nowhere to shovel Launcher wounds. Meanwhile, Launcher wounds also sneak through, and when they do, you should have enough CP (with this build) to simply burn on Command Rerolls of multi-damage and whatnot. Added bonus: People do not respect Bolters, or Marines, so they tend to do stupid , even in tournaments. "How bad could 130-150 bolter shots be?"

Real bad, when you get hit from further away than you can reliably charge, it turns out.

[Special Officer Doofy]

Nice report, I always wanted to see a massive army of plague marines do some damage. The champions can use combibolters? I thought it was just boltguns, bolt pistols plasma guns and plasma pistols.

[DemetriiTZ]

Index has additional Champion options you can make use of. :-) Can pick up combi-plasma also, if so inclined, but I see no reason to get plasma. Launchers re-roll wounds and having people forced to chew through 5 expendable bodies before they kill a Launcher frustrates a lot of enemy firepower. I'm even considering a Surgeon!

Gonna also try another version with Poxbringers, Bell, and Necrosius swapped for 3 Mal. Casters, so all 11 squads have Inexorable. Takeaway is: Beta bolters are very strong.

[Special Officer Doofy]

Ah okay. Where I play (at a GW alot of the time but also other local hobby shops) the codexes supercede the indexes and replace the relevant data sheets. And since plague marines are in both they require the more up to date codex data sheet. A couple months ago I tried buying this digital bundle from GW that had the rule book and all 5 indexes for cheap but when you click the link to their digital store the link is dead. When I emailed them about the issue they said the indexes are out of date now that the codexes are out and the data sheets have been updated (and they forgot to take the bundle off the normal store). I asked about older units (like warboss on a bike or apothecary on a bike) that are not in the codexes and they said those units are no longer manufactured but can use the indexes data sheets for them. Anyone have a link or GW official statement that says you can use units with updated cheaper codex points but still use older index wargear? Or is that something you veterans know from many moons ago and I'm late to the party?

[DemetriiTZ]

You can use an Index wargear option if it's not an option in the Codex.

Search 40k Index Flowchart on Google. :-)

[Special Officer Doofy]

I Googled it and found https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/07/05/codexes-your-questions-answered-july-5gw-homepage-post-2/

 

Three quotes

 

"Are the rules changing?

Yes, many units’ rules in their codexes will alter from those in the indexes. Sometimes this is to better represent the miniatures and the background, sometimes to balance the game, and sometimes to better fit with the army’s new special rules in the codex itself. In all cases, these will then supersede the rules for that datasheet in the index book."

 

"Can I combine units from the index and a codex into one army?

The datasheets in the new codexes overwrite the same datasheets in the index books. You can certainly use units with updated datasheets alongside units from the index that have yet to be updated. Once a unit has been covered in the codex though, we assume you’re using the latest version."

 

"Can I choose to use the rules and/or points for units from my index instead of the new ones in the codex once released?

In your own games, if you and your opponent agree, you can, of course, play with whatever rules you like.

 

In all future publications and official events though, it will be assumed that you’re using the most recent rules and Datasheets. It will also be assumed that you’re using the most up to date points for matched play, in this case, those included in the codex."

 

Is Warhammer-community part of their official sites?

[Bulwyf]

You can always use Index options if the codex doesn't have that option. For instance, we can still use demon prince index to include in our lists to get warptime for Mortarion if you want.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

My interpretation has been that you can use the index version or the codex version

 

I'm rather dubious on saying well these weapons options are in the Index but I like the rules from the codex better.

 

Its only a minor thing but perhaps I'm just not cut throat enough when gaming.

[DemetriiTZ]

Index wargear can be used -- you do have to use updated point costs, however

[DemetriiTZ]

And to be clear, ONLY Index Wargear is allowed to be swapped in. The newer rules and stats and pricing in-Codex cannot be bypassed.

[Arkhanist]

There's a flowchart at the end of the designer's commentary from the warhammer community FAQ section that explains how it works.

 

In this case:

the unit has a datasheet in the codex, so we use that. However there are wargear options in the index that the datasheet doesn't have, so we can add those wargear options. All points and rules for that wargear come from the most recent source, i.e. chapter approved supersedes codex which supersedes index.

 

This is to allow for the use of old models that came with those wargear options, that they no longer do. e.g. the current plague marines box does not include a combi-bolter, so it's no longer in the datasheet, but people may well have old plague marines who used that option. The indexes are now obsolete for pretty much everyone now, but they want to allow people with existing model collections to carry on using them for now, but they don't want to put options in the codex for models they no longer sell as 'it would be confusing for newcomers'. Sound appropriate death knell for conversions etc.

 

It's reasonable to assume that when they come to do the next big revision of 40k that the index options will be retired entirely, so I'd personally hesitate to commit any significant effort into converting units to have options that may well be gone for good in a year or two.

[DemetriiTZ]

Meh. People have been harping about the impending demise of Indexes for years, even since before CA 1. Either way, combibolters are easy enough to get by without conversions to represent. Your sarge's bolter just has a higher rate of fire, clearly!