State of the Union (Heresy)

[DesuVult]

The game is going to be 2W 2+ save elite spam if these rumours are true. Which I think is less exciting.

With some other durable units like warders with a rerollable 4++ mixed in.

[Brofist]

Like any normal dude I abandoned all responsibilities to spend this week pouring over the new rules. I've digested probably 3/4s of the ruleset so I wanted to share how it feels this edition is shaping out to be. While these are playtest rules, they're latestage and likely not very different from what's being printed somewhere right now.

 

I've been playing since Book 1. This new edition will feel familiar to longtime players, but underneath it's a major rework. What we have is closer to a new game than an incremental change. You can feel the influence of more recent specialist games with tighter, more deliberate rules, and less traps or erroneous wargear options. I'm sure everyone can find something they wish was different, but overall what I'm seeing is quite good and an exciting new direction for 30k.

 

The new game is much more mobile than before- most units can move longer distances, many significantly so. Simultaneously, there are less ways to scout, infiltrate, or outflank. Coming in from reserves is more reliable, more tactically interesting for both players, and also more concentrated- units come in as groups in an area rather than piecemeal across many turns. Assault from certain kinds of reserves is now possible, but can be countered by reactions or planning. Reactions give you an economy of actions to take during an opponents turn, keeping you engaged during the entire game. Fliers can even react to enemy fliers from off the table. All this combined, I think we're going to see a more interesting, dynamic, game. You're going to be planning your turn, how your opponent might react to you, and how you will react to them... and then half an army shows up somewhere else on the table on the second turn. Very cool.

 

New or existing special rules have been reworked to enable you to buff or debuff units, leading to new interesting interactions. For many of these new interactions there are wargear options that enable you to mitigate them, leading to new, very different, list building opportunities. Some legions lean more heavily into using these new mechanics, but everyone still has access to them. Regarding internal balance, there are some deliberate design choices that have given breathing room to underused wargear and units. Melta bombs, AP2, AP3, and large blast weapons are much more rare. Artillery, in particularly, is either gone or capped out at AP3. Opposite to this, there is now much more access to weapons with things like pinning(), shred(), rending(), or new similar mechanics. Giving special rules scales to how good they pin and rend further helps differentiate equipment. Weapon balance is the best its been with pretty clear niches for most weapons. Leadership has been knocked down a notch, many of the old wargear options are not as strong, and Sergents only bring a unit up to 8. Fearless is somehow even more rare, yet there are more situations where you'll need to test against leadership. Many infantry units now have two wounds with the 'mandatory' wargear options builtin or clearly presented to you. There seems to be a conscious effort to limit the number of trap choices presented to players and to reduce erroneous rolling- no more look out sir, for example, because you don't need it with how the new wound allocation system works. RoW, HQs, and legion abilities are generally less restrictive, but also less powerful. 

 

Its impossible to update a game of this scope without something not working right or somebody getting disappointed. A few of the new rules, like defensive weapons, add granularity without a lot in return. This edition comes almost a decade after Book 1, so the influence of corporate GW is certainly here. While there are less trap choices, there are also less quirky interesting wargear options. Its a change of the times. If a unit doesn't have a model, you can expect it to be gone. Retiring physical models is not an easy pill to swallow- some units are entirely gone, others taken out from the legion book and placed into other army lists. We can only speculate if we'll see some return. Balance is also a double edged sword- the same deliberate design choices that are encouraging big units of infantry are also hurting others. Plasma is less effective, but it still costs a lot. Big powerful ordinance weapons find themselves in strange new niches, doing notably less hits, at notably worse AP, against cheaper, more numerous infantry with the ability to tank the damage better. Despite their best efforts, some habits die hard, so you can still look forward to finding some of that 'old' Forgeworld flavor in here- categorically overpriced plasma pistols, units left without a niche as other things changed around them, wargear options that interact with themselves in a way that nullifys the wargear you paid for, etc. These aren't many, but they're still here.

 

I get the feeling this new edition will open up favoring large diverse units of infantry and direct fire weapons. Infantry are more survivable than ever, and they're cheap. There's a big emphasis on attrition now, either through the importance of leadership or the multitude of mechanics that rend, shred, sunder, or breach their way past your armor saves. Battles should feel more like gritty slug fests where you're wearing down each other rather than removing models while standing around with a beer. With how reserves work, you'll see bigger more meaningful shifts to a battle once or twice a game instead of a harassment from enemy units deepstriking anywhere throughout the entire game. Reactions are also really important, so finding out when and how to use yours, with the army you build, will be a big part of figuring out the new game. 1500pts in the new edition feels closer to 1850 today. Combined with the completely new unit and equipment meta? We'll, its all very new and exciting.

 

1000 words to say, the rules look good folks

Edited March 31, 2022 by Brofist

[Astartes Consul]

We’ve seen remarkably little of generic Legion list info.

 

Have we actually seen anything other than the supposed datasheets for the Predator & Kratos? As well as a few weapon profiles etc?

[Spagunk]

 

We’ve seen remarkably little of generic Legion list info.

 

Have we actually seen anything other than the supposed datasheets for the Predator & Kratos? As well as a few weapon profiles etc?

 

The data sheets are out there but is there something specific you wish to know about either?

Just because I am paranoid: if you can, try to phrase it in a way I can say "yes/no" to.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Spagunk

[Brofist]

 

We’ve seen remarkably little of generic Legion list info.

 

Have we actually seen anything other than the supposed datasheets for the Predator & Kratos? As well as a few weapon profiles etc?

 

 

The entire ruleset and legion list is floating around

[DesuVult]

 

Like any normal dude I abandoned all responsibilities to spend this week pouring over the new rules. I've digested probably 3/4s of the ruleset so I wanted to share how it feels this edition is shaping out to be. While these are playtest rules, they're latestage and likely not very different from what's being printed somewhere right now.

 

I've been playing since Book 1. This new edition will feel familiar to longtime players, but underneath it's a major rework. What we have is closer to a new game than an incremental change. You can feel the influence of more recent specialist games with tighter, more deliberate rules, and less traps or erroneous wargear options. I'm sure everyone can find something they wish was different, but overall what I'm seeing is quite good and an exciting new direction for 30k.

 

The new game is much more mobile than before- most units can move longer distances, many significantly so. Simultaneously, there are less ways to scout, infiltrate, or outflank. Coming in from reserves is more reliable, more tactically interesting for both players, and also more concentrated- units come in as groups in an area rather than piecemeal across many turns. Assault from certain kinds of reserves is now possible, but can be countered by reactions or planning. Reactions give you an economy of actions to take during an opponents turn, keeping you engaged during the entire game. Fliers can even react to enemy fliers from off the table. All this combined, I think we're going to see a more interesting, dynamic, game. You're going to be planning your turn, how your opponent might react to you, and how you will react to them... and then half an army shows up somewhere else on the table on the second turn. Very cool.

 

New or existing special rules have been reworked to enable you to buff or debuff units, leading to new interesting interactions. For many of these new interactions there are wargear options that enable you to mitigate them, leading to new, very different, list building opportunities. Some legions lean more heavily into using these new mechanics, but everyone still has access to them. Regarding internal balance, there are some deliberate design choices that have given breathing room to underused wargear and units. Melta bombs, AP2, AP3, and large blast weapons are much more rare. Artillery, in particularly, is either gone or capped out at AP3. Opposite to this, there is now much more access to weapons with things like pinning(), shred(), rending(), or new similar mechanics. Giving special rules scales to how good they pin and rend further helps differentiate equipment. Weapon balance is the best its been with pretty clear niches for most weapons. Leadership has been knocked down a notch, many of the old wargear options are not as strong, and Sergents only bring a unit up to 8. Fearless is somehow even more rare, yet there are more situations where you'll need to test against leadership. Many infantry units now have two wounds with the 'mandatory' wargear options builtin or clearly presented to you. There seems to be a conscious effort to limit the number of trap choices presented to players and to reduce erroneous rolling- no more look out sir, for example, because you don't need it with how the new wound allocation system works. RoW, HQs, and legion abilities are generally less restrictive, but also less powerful. 

 

Its impossible to update a game of this scope without something not working right or somebody getting disappointed. A few of the new rules, like defensive weapons, add granularity without a lot in return. This edition comes almost a decade after Book 1, so the influence of corporate GW is certainly here. While there are less trap choices, there are also less quirky interesting wargear options. Its a change of the times. If a unit doesn't have a model, you can expect it to be gone. Retiring physical models is not an easy pill to swallow- some units are entirely gone, others taken out from the legion book and placed into other army lists. We can only speculate if we'll see some return. Balance is also a double edged sword- the same deliberate design choices that are encouraging big units of infantry are also hurting others. Plasma is less effective, but it still costs a lot. Big powerful ordinance weapons find themselves in strange new niches, doing notably less hits, at notably worse AP, against cheaper, more numerous infantry with the ability to tank the damage better. Despite their best efforts, some habits die hard, so you can still look forward to finding some of that 'old' Forgeworld flavor in here- categorically overpriced plasma pistols, units left without a niche as other things changed around them, wargear options that interact with themselves in a way that nullifys the wargear you paid for, etc. These aren't many, but they're still here.

 

I get the feeling this new edition will open up favoring large diverse units of infantry and direct fire weapons. Infantry are more survivable than ever, and they're cheap. There's a big emphasis on attrition now, either through the importance of leadership or the multitude of mechanics that rend, shred, sunder, or breach their way past your armor saves. Battles should feel more like gritty slug fests where you're wearing down each other rather than removing models while standing around with a beer. With how reserves work, you'll see bigger more meaningful shifts to a battle once or twice a game instead of a harassment from enemy units deepstriking anywhere throughout the entire game. Reactions are also really important, so finding out when and how to use yours, with the army you build, will be a big part of figuring out the new game. 1500pts in the new edition feels closer to 1850 today. Combined with the completely new unit and equipment meta? We'll, its all very new and exciting.

 

1000 words to say, the rules look good folks

 

 

You say the rules favor diverse units.  What is the downside to fielding just durable elite infantry?

[Slips]

 

 

Like any normal dude I abandoned all responsibilities to spend this week pouring over the new rules. I've digested probably 3/4s of the ruleset so I wanted to share how it feels this edition is shaping out to be. While these are playtest rules, they're latestage and likely not very different from what's being printed somewhere right now.

*snip*

 

You say the rules favor diverse units.  What is the downside to fielding just durable elite infantry?

 

Scoring.

 

Cant win if you cant score.

 

And Vets/Termies/etc, all lose scoring so unless you move them to troops, good luck with that.

Remember, Tac Squads with apothecaries sitting on an objective have a 4+ FNP

[DesuVult]

 

 

 

Like any normal dude I abandoned all responsibilities to spend this week pouring over the new rules. I've digested probably 3/4s of the ruleset so I wanted to share how it feels this edition is shaping out to be. While these are playtest rules, they're latestage and likely not very different from what's being printed somewhere right now.

*snip*

 

You say the rules favor diverse units.  What is the downside to fielding just durable elite infantry?

 

Scoring.

 

Cant win if you cant score.

 

And Vets/Termies/etc, all lose scoring so unless you move them to troops, good luck with that.

Remember, Tac Squads with apothecaries sitting on an objective have a 4+ FNP

 

 

This sounds, not fun.  My worry about veteran elites was bogging the game down with unkillable infantry blocks.  Tacticals with 4+++ does not alleviate that concern and just makes it sound worse.

[Slips]

 

 

 

 

Like any normal dude I abandoned all responsibilities to spend this week pouring over the new rules. I've digested probably 3/4s of the ruleset so I wanted to share how it feels this edition is shaping out to be. While these are playtest rules, they're latestage and likely not very different from what's being printed somewhere right now.

*snip*

 

You say the rules favor diverse units.  What is the downside to fielding just durable elite infantry?

 

Scoring.

 

Cant win if you cant score.

 

And Vets/Termies/etc, all lose scoring so unless you move them to troops, good luck with that.

Remember, Tac Squads with apothecaries sitting on an objective have a 4+ FNP

 

 

This sounds, not fun.  My worry about veteran elites was bogging the game down with unkillable infantry blocks.  Tacticals with 4+++ does not alleviate that concern and just makes it sound worse.

 

You'll just have to see how it plays out in a game yourself then.

[Excessus]

We literally know nothing about the rules, much less about tactical applications of them.

 

 

I guess in times like these I'm happy to be a long-time CSM player so I know how to be patient during rumours and leaks...

[Brofist]

Without playing it remains to be seen just how much you'll need to grind it out. Don't expect the high lethality of the current edition, but you still have plenty of ways to deal with marines.

 

Tacticals with 4++ sitting on an objective is exactly what they've been designed to do and you'll need to find a way to deal with them. They're not totally pushovers anymore. 

 

We literally know nothing about the rules, much less about tactical applications of them.

 

 

I guess in times like these I'm happy to be a long-time CSM player so I know how to be patient during rumours and leaks...

 

You don't have to trust me, I'm probably not the only person who's read the core rules in this thread right now.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Brofist

[The Scorpion]

Anything that allows the models to stay a bit longer on the table is a win in my book.

 

I like to see colored toy soldiers spead across the battlefield.

[TheTrans]

 

 

You don't have to trust me, I'm probably not the only person who's read the core rules in this thread right now.

 

What does the 'Heavy' type do!?

[Slips]

 

 

 

You don't have to trust me, I'm probably not the only person who's read the core rules in this thread right now.

 

What does the 'Heavy' type do!?

 

Re-roll saves vs blasts and templates.

[Brofist]

... and you can't run

[TheTrans]

Holy :cuss... thats why Catahpractii costs so much more than Tartarus! 

[SkimaskMohawk]

What's the line from lotr, "The age of the terminator is over. The age of the terminator has begun."?

 

I say this because I definitely caught heat for thinking terminators were great in 1st edition. They're certainly even better now. Someone mentioned in the news and rumour thread that pride still exists, so if you can still make them score, then they're one of the best units out there. The venerable power/chain fist can put most of your multi-wound, 4++ fnp worries to rest. Cataphractii getting heavy just...laughs at all the newly nerfed barrage.

[Runefyre]

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, Grey Slayers are now their own unit. The tactical role of the old unit has been given to the new Grey Stalkers:

 

 

Wolfbros, what do you think of this?

Unless I'm missing something, there is no meaningful difference between stalker and slayer packs, not sure why they couldn't just stay the same unit with the optional loadouts built into the wargear options.

 

Having seen the other few VIth legion leaks I've got mixed feelings. Varagyr look more promising with a price drop and changes to their DT requirements (not longer requiring 6 or more models to have a spartan DT). Deathsworn appear to be untouched unless their abilities have received tweaks, their dataslate is identical to Inferno.

 

Of the 3 warlord traits there's only 1 that's any good imo, I am a little sad to lose my full list of unique warlord traits. Couldn't keep that I guess, despite DA still getting 6 RoW lol.

 

Pale Hunters RoW is much improved, actually dependable outflank finally. The Bloodied claw is much worse, I'm not sure how to justify a whole RoW on a single underwhelming (and one-use) ability.

 

Very curious if Russ will get leaked at some point, I really hope they keep him largely as he was. I loved his Inferno dataslate.

 

I'm not making any final judgments until the rules are in my hands, but I'm not exactly hyped. Just hoping for a functional ruleset. Also fingers crossed that they don't screw over my collection, I don't want to have to reconvert models and units I've spent hours and hours on planning loadouts and unit compositions.

 

Another side to this discussion is the lore that will arrive with the new edition, and I have to say I hope they mostly copy/paste from the Black Books. I loved everything written for the Wolves in Inferno, and I hope they don't mess things up on that front.

What's the source of your wolf leaks?

 

https://imgur.com/a/y0KPqyz

[Brofist]

Yep, that's a pretty good assessment. Considering there are almost no AP2 templates, it's very unlikely you'll get killed by blast.

[bushman101]

Can we get a link to the full leaked rules, or is that not allowed?

[Slips]

What's the line from lotr, "The age of the terminator is over. The age of the terminator has begun."?

 

I say this because I definitely caught heat for thinking terminators were great in 1st edition. They're certainly even better now. Someone mentioned in the news and rumour thread that pride still exists, so if you can still make them score, then they're one of the best units out there. The venerable power/chain fist can put most of your multi-wound, 4++ fnp worries to rest. Cataphractii getting heavy just...laughs at all the newly nerfed barrage.

I doubt POTL will come out of this unscathed, however, with how popular it was in the past for some pretty minor downsides (losing VP is not that minor of a downside but still).

[Spagunk]

Can we get a link to the full leaked rules, or is that not allowed?

File sharing is likely banned here. Imgur links tend to be fine. 

 

That said, I have it on authority that certain people leaking stuff have put a moratorium on distributing stuff directly so you may be out of luck until someone posts it on another site. 

[Slips]

Like I've said previously, the reason why the whole thing isnt out there is because they'll all get sued by GW into the ground if it gets traced back to them and who wants that, really?

[Biscuittzz]

The Darkwing gunship is gone for Raven Guard unless I'm mistaken. It isn't listed as a DT for Mor Deythan on their unit sheet anymore.

[BadDice0809]

 

 

 

 

We’ve seen remarkably little of generic Legion list info.

Have we actually seen anything other than the supposed datasheets for the Predator & Kratos? As well as a few weapon profiles etc?

The data sheets are out there but is there something specific you wish to know about either?

Just because I am paranoid: if you can, try to phrase it in a way I can say "yes/no" to.

Are boxnaughts still in the new edition. Seriously I don't get why one of the apparently many leakers on this site can't just give us a run down on what models made it and which didn't.