New Space Marine FAQ

A new FAQ for the Space Marines had dropped today. This shakes up some of the more powerful Chapters and units in the game. 

I think most people can agree that the Space Marines have been dominant in the game since the release of the new codex and supplements. These new rules are an attempt to address some of these issues, let's take a look at how they are doing. 

Doctrines

This is a huge change for the rules and will have a big effect on a number of armies, most notably, the Iron Hands, who have been using the Devastator doctrine to very good effect. 

Space Marines now have the Devastator doctrine in turn 1, the Tactical Doctrine in turn 2, then in turn 3 can choose the Tactical or Assault Doctrine, and the Assault Doctrine from turn 4 onwards.  This new rule forces players to move through the Doctrines, so they cannot stick with the most powerful one for their army for most of the game. 

This is a big counter to the power of Iron Hands and Imperial Fists armies that were very powerful in the tournament setting. The ability to move and fire heavy weapons without penalty, as well as re-rolling 1's to hit was a massive boost for the firepower of Iron Hands armies in the game, getting this ability from turn 1 for the whole game made them one of the strongest armies in the game (in combination with a number of other abilities). 

Now, you get one turn with the bonus to your firepower, then must move into the Tactical Doctrine. Additionally, the Tactical Doctrine has become slightly less effective for the Raven Guard, as you can only get the bonus for a maximum of two turns. 

This actually makes armies that have a doctrine bonus in the Assault Doctrine a bit more powerful, as this is the doctrine you will be using the most in games. Depending on when you switch the doctrine, you have to spend around 50% of a standard game in the assault doctrine, or up to 70% in a seven turn game. 

2018 Big FAQ 2 Review video

Hi everyone, I've put together a review video of the Big FAQ 2 that was released on Friday. This features some expanded thoughts of my written review article that I posted yesterday. Hope you enjoy!

Big FAQ Sept 2018 Review

The September big FAQ dropped yesterday to the joy and lament of 40k players everywhere. Like many others all over the internet, I'm going to do an analysis of the changes to the game, and what it might mean for my own armies. 

The Big FAQ 2

Battle Brothers, Psychic Focus and the Character targeting rules are now official and no longer beta. I think most players could see this coming, so no big surprise there. 

Even with the change to Battle Brothers, Imperial armies are still incredibly strong, able to gain access to cheap brigades and battalions to rack up the command points. This still makes them incredibly strong in the current game. 

No real change for me here, as I don't really play Smite-heavy armies or run many mixed forces in my games. 

Tactical Reserves

The biggest change here is that no units may arrive from reserve on turn 1. This is quite a big change for many armies in the game. 

One thing that immediately sprung to mind was no more "hiding" Dark Reapers or Ravagers in reserve to stop them being shot at in turn 1. Your Aeldari opponent will now have to start them on the table from turn 1 (and potentially vulnerable), or wait to turn 2 to use them. With a fast moving army, you can potentially block off a lot of area of the board and restrict the reserves arrival of more powerful enemy units, even if you didn't get the first turn now.

The change also restricts you to half the number of units and up to half the points total in reserve now. I think the change from power level to points level was expected, and I'm surprised they didn't do it from the start. I may be wrong, but I don't think many players used power level regularly in games, so points make more sense. In addition, points are now being updated in Chapter Approved, whereas power levels seem to be staying as they are, so this makes it easier to adjust the army to cope with changes to the game.

My White Scars and Deathwatch may be affected by this change. I would sometimes bring my reserve units down on turn 1, depending on how aggressively my opponent was playing. It didn't happen too often, but it was a useful tactical choice to have. However, I used it so rarely that I don't think it will really have an effect on how I use these armies.

This change to the rule will probably hit my Genestealer Cults the hardest until the new codex comes out. No longer being able to arrive from reserve and assault on turn 1 is a big deal for the Genestealer Cults. This was one of the few things the Cult had going for them in terms of special rules. While this will probably be sorted in the codex, it will be a long few months of using the Cult in the mean time. They simply don't have a lot of durably infantry units that can start on the board and potentially survive 2 turns of the enemy shooting.

The Cult are one of the few armies that needs most of its strength in reserve to get into combat. Their transports are expensive and not too durable, and their infantry are basically Guardsmen when it comes to enemy guns and will melt away long before they get into combat.

The change from power level to points shouldn't have too much of an influence. In my recent video battle report, my units in reserve totalled around 950 pts, so I wouldn't have been able to put much more in reserve anyway.

Warhammer 40k April FAQ- Initial Thoughts

On Monday, the new FAQ for Warhammer 40,000 dropped. There were some big changes to the game and some new proposed rules that should shake things up quite a bit. Here are my initial thoughts on what I think of the new rules and changes. 

New Matched Play Rules

The previous Beta rules on Smite and character targeting have pretty much been made official now with only a few changes. 

Smite Spam

Personally, I didn't think the Beta rules went far enough when it came to Smite spam. Having played against this a few times, it was not a lot of fun to play against and really depressing when you faced it with certain armies. 

Even when using the new Beta rules, it didn't seem to have much effect on the ability. Most games I played against it, my opponent was still rarely failing any psychic tests and still causing havoc with the power. Maybe that was just great rolling from my opponents, but it didn't really change much for me. 

The one change I did like was that it was harder to get the D6 mortal wounds after casting Smite a few times. This has now changed and you have the potential to get this a number of times during the turn. Maybe the changes to army composition (more on this below) will help reduce Smite spam, but I still think it may be a problem against some armies, especially Grey Knights and Daemons who seem to have got an exemption from it. 

I would like to see Smite go from Mortal wounds to automatic wounds, or some such system. Maybe it could ignore invulnerable saves or get -2 or -3 AP. I understand why the mortal wounds mechanic is in place, but it just seems to remove a lot of your ability to block it in the game. Not all armies have access to cheap screening units or FNP bubbles, making it really difficult to block Smite spam or mortal wounds spam with them. 

Astra Militarum Errata and FAQ- Big changes for Commissars

GW have just released a new errata and FAQ based on the new Astra Militarum codex. If you haven't seen it, you can find it on the following link. 

I don't normally post about these, but there were a couple of things that caught my interest and came at a good time as I was working on my Codex review. 

The first major one is the change to Commissars. Under the old rules, Astra Militarum units within 6" of a Commissar could never lose more than a single model as a result of a single failed morale test. Under the new rules: "The first time an Astra Militarum unit fails a Morale test during the Morale phase whilst it is within 6" of any friendly Commissars, one model of your choice in that unit is slain and the Morale test is re-rolled (do not include this slain model when re-rolling the Morale test)."

This has big implications for Conscript spam units in the game. Previously, if you were to wipe out half of a 30-strong Conscript squad, they could only lose a single model to morale. Now, however, you are only getting a re-roll for the cost of a single member of the unit rather than "automatically passing". This is a big change meaning that morale will have a big effect on these units and other Guard units in the game. I think this is probably a change for the better, making conscript mobs much more likely to fold under intense firepower. 

In fact, most of the time you are probably better off not including a Commissar in your army. The rule states that you must lose a single model and re-roll the test. This could be more detrimental in a lot of situations. For example, say you fail a morale test on a 1 or a 2 and would lose a single model from your unit. If there was a Commissar nearby, you would be forced to lose a single model and still re-roll the morale test, potentially losing even more from your squad.

The other big change for me was that Genestealer Cults armies now use the new Grinding Advance rule for their Leman Russ tanks, allowing them to fire twice if they remain stationary or move below half speed. As I was planning on adding a Russ to my army, this is a great boost for them, giving them much more firepower.

It is a little annoying that my brand new Astra Militarum codex that is less than 2 weeks old is already out of date, but I do appreciate the speed with which they are fixing things. 

What do you think of the new FAQ? Is it going to improve things in competitive 40k without conscript blobs tying everything up. 

40k Rulebook FAQ now up!

Hi everyone,
wanted to share this link with the blog readers. The rulebook FAQ is now up on the warhammer community page.

I've had a quick look through and two changes from the draft FAQ I spotted were:
- Scout moves occur before Seize the initiative. This makes sense, but it was nice to have an extra tool for countering seizing.
- Passengers in a jinking vehicle don't have to fire snap shots. I would have liked to have them fire snap shots as per the draft FAQ, but Dark Eldar players will be happy (for once!).

Any other changes that I may have missed?

New Space Marine FAQ's Review

Games Workshop posted the latest round of first draft FAQs a couple of days ago, this time dealing with various Space Marine rules queries. I had a look through them and there are some interesting rulings that are going to have some impact on my Dark Angels and White Scars armies and I thought I would take a look at these.

This ruling means that my White Scars Command squad could now take 5 grav guns and 5 storm shields. This would make the unit even more powerful, but even more expensive. I would probably take at least a Storm Shield on the Apothecary, as I often use him in challenges to protect Khan or the Librarian and it would help when he is targeted by sniper fire or barrage.

EDIT- This has now been amended as the answer should have been "No". So no upgrading the Apothecary for me.