Oh man, Legionary Champions are doing good! Night Lords can now take Lightning Claws again under Accursed weapons.
However the chance to take 2 big axes per squad ("heavy melee weapons") is so tempting.
While they have not, it is highly unlikely that you will get to swing with all the melee weapons you're equipped with. It's going to be "Pick one melee weapon you're equipped with, and make the relevant numbers of Attacks with it". Why you ask?
[Because Legionaries come stock with a "Close Combat Weapon"](https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/9NssgmUQeN7AM67t.jpg) (3A 3+ 4/0/1), and can replace their Boltgun for an Astartes Chainsword (4A 3+ 4/-1/1)... without losing said CCW.
I don't see GW being stupid enough to have Legionaries running around making 7A each with easy access to exploding 6s (Dark Pacts) and re-roll a Wound roll of 1/the Wound roll (Veterans of the Long War) - while also having Abaddon granting them full re-roll to the Hit roll if he is in the vicinity.
So am I right that the champ can have melee weapons as written, and only one other legionary can have a ‘heavy melee weapon’ whether it’s 5 or 10 man squad? Would be better if the heavy melee weapon was in the ‘for every 5 models in the unit…’ part
You're correct, it's 1 per squad (ignoring the champ). It's probably to keep in line with what's in the box to be fair, which I don't dislike.
In all honesty, running 5 man squads is better anyway to max your Heavy Melee and/or Accursed weapons and special weapons anyway, so it's no big loss.
Kind of hoping the less-enthusiastic CSM (IW, NL, AL sometimes) get a little more thematically-appropriate options in detachments down the road. What they showed today is very "CHAOS CHAOS".
At least the Legionary KT box I built is still all legal. And I appreciate that we still get to take such a wide variety of special weapons in Legionary squads.
Yeah I REAAALLY hope they just haven't uncovered the full rules for psychic powers because I was really excited building a psyker-heavy army of Word Bearers. If half of the powers turn out to just be slightly better bolters I'll be disappointed.
the swarmlord got its 2 powers from the hive mind discipline turned into a gun too. I doubt it gets much better than that for each non-support non-gk/ts psyker.
Allegedly, one of the testers (this guy is a big leaker/a valid source, from what I was told) said that there was a lot of cool stuff going on with Psykers this ED and that he's planning on playing TSons because they're the funnest army he got to try. Or at least, the funnest Chaos army.
There are a few trustworthy sources, though. I mean, it technically still is a "bro trust me" moment, but their track record at least means they earned that trust.
Haha. If he’s an official play tester, he could lose his job for leaking. I doubt he’s giving out his name, and if he was it might be “not cool” to share it around and get the guy in trouble.
Overall I like the direction of CSM in 10th, but this is probably my biggest problem from the article - not only is it exceptionally boring to not give the Balefire Tome an actual ability. I can live with normal psykers getting a gun + one ability, the current discipline system is horribly balanced anyway with half the powers being worthless.
The worst part is probably that the Balefire gun is also pretty bad. Sure, better than a boltgun, but I still don't see a reason to run ranged Legionaries, and now the Balefire Tome is completely useless for melee squads.
Ya, I made my legionnaires with balefire tomes. I chose CSM because I love psychic powers so much. I was considering thousand sons for even more psychic goodness, but they gutted the customization, and now it looks like psychic powers in general are just gutted.
What’s the point if it’s just another gun?
>Ya, I made my legionnaires with balefire tomes. I chose CSM because I love psychic powers so much. I was considering thousand sons for even more psychic goodness, but they gutted the customization, and now it looks like psychic powers in general are just gutted.
Allegedly, one of the testers (this guy is a big leaker/a valid source, from what I was told) said that there was a lot of cool stuff going on with Psykers this ED and that he's planning on playing TSons because they're the funnest army he got to try. Or at least, the funnest Chaos army.
Well, for one, it's a gun on a dude's backpack. He can still have a chainsword and pistol to wreck face in melee but he can zorch a guy with warp powet first.
Also, it has the keyword [psychic] as do all the other power "guns" but no indication yet wtf that means. We also have not seen any powers that are not attacks and which may influence other phases like movement.
So, let's wait for the actual rules before we get ourselves worked up. So far, a 10 man melee legionary squad with 2 heavy melee weapons in a rhino sounds pretty good to me.
We’ve already seen some use of “Pyschic” keyword, for example the librarian pyschic hood give the unit a 4+ feel no pain against psychic attacks, in terms of movement they previewed Da jump that went off on a 2+ so people need to just chill until we see the full picture
Interesting to see the parallels and differences between Abaddon and Guilliman.
Both have 2+ / 4++ with about the same number of wounds, both have the same leadership, both have similar offensive outputs, both have three abilities and pick one to buff their armies, both have some degree of CP manipulation.
Where they differ is that Abaddon joins units (he is a Leader), whereas Guilliman does not. To compensate, Guilliman has the new equivalent of Look Out Sir if he’s near marines, has a much higher Toughness (5 versus 9!), and can return from the dead with Armour of Fate. Guilliman is also faster.
Both look to be interesting build-around centrepieces, but I like the idea of Abaddon being able to lead a big blob of Terminators and menace the centre of the board. I should probably get around to assembling and painting mine…
At least 1 more attack when wanting the "smash" choice. Still need the fight phase rules, but the Legionaries card comes close to confirming that you have to pick a weapon to fight with. Unless we think chainsword legionaries are getting 7 attacks. Which would be awesome, but a bit silly.
So all autocannons will get the predator destructor’s AP-1 and 3 damage. What exactly do you want to shoot this at? What has 3+ wounds but crappy saves? Orks?
Doing some math, looks like it does have a leg up on the chain cannon vs a rhino. In a 10 man squad, you can’t double up heavy weapons, so it may be the best runner up behind a lascannon for anti-armor.
Maybe they don't want to call all mounted/cavalry units "bikers" in 10th ed (not sure if rough riders are "bikers"?). Although it would be sweet if we eventually got new mounted CSM to refresh the old bikes.
Do we think that Power Fists are just now "Heavy Melee Weapons"? I figured the Heavy Chainaxe is going to fall into the "HMW" category, but I'd be really surprised to see Power Fists and/or Chainfists go away and turn into something generic like that.
*EDIT* No Daemon Blades, either - guess that might just be rolled into Accursed Weapons, huh?
That's how I see it. Same profile as the Terminator power fist I believe. It's good though, it's a lot easier to get a hold of power fists than it is for heavy chain axes.
Only way it makes sense. Powerfists have to be either HMWs or Accursed Weapons and HMW certainly fits them better. And it aligns with the concept of rules matching the box content.
I quite like it, though. You get one Heavy Chain Axe per 10 guys IIRC, so I'll be happy to use some alternatives.
This looks pretty cool, I'm currently in the process of building/painting my first CSM army and these pacts and stratagems seem like they'll add some good options for fluffy yet very useful tools. I have no experience with playing the game yet but this makes me even more excited to start!
Same here! I bought a combat patrol/legionaries box/abaddon and a demon prince! Very excited to get started on all of this now! Long weekend ahead of me it seems
Lads, relax. This is just a tiny teaser, not the whole codex. It may or may not suck when it’s fully released, but we won’t know until we get everything. No need to panic just yet.
Which is wild we have army wide on demand access to autowounds on 6 hits or exploding for both shooting and melee.
Our Legionaires are improved.
Abba can give a 6in bubble of 4+ invuln to infantry.
What is to panic about.
It's not mortals on 6s it's auto wounds on 6s. It's pretty boring personally but without seeing any potential legions specific stuff and the benefits of marks It's hard to tell. Hopefully we get some flavour from marks and E.C. keeps noise marines as battle line.
Having to roll for it every phase you want to use it for every unit is annoying. Wanton was fun and a nice solid and strong built in ability. It's funny you say it's way better but got the ability wrong. Personally not a big fan of the auto wounding mechanic at all in 9th edition, but we will see. Hopefully, marks are more flavourful if legion traits are no longer a thing. It just makes the armies so generic and boring imo.
Looks good tbh. Looking forward to it👍
Super minor nitpick:
A little irritated that a legionary's **boltgun** can be replaced with a plasma pistol and not the **bolt pistol** getting replaced. (A mistake that was made in the update to the 9th ed codex that has evidently refused to correct itself).
[Edit: This is separate from the Aspiring Champion's wargear.]
Modelling a dude with dual pistols isn't really an option with the current kit (all the pistols are left handed) and the revised 8th ed codex had the *correct* option of replacing the bolt **pistol** with a plasma **pistol** (given as an alternative option to replacing the boltgun with a plasma gun), so that squads with all chainswords could also have a plasma pistol or two (including the champion's) in there.
It would be nice if they fixed this small issue before printing the new cards (or at least get around to FAQing it this time). Especially as they are pushing for "what's in the box" to be represented by datasheets, haha!
If they don't, I guess I'll just continue to ignore the mistake and carry on with the "house rule" with my friends.
I think you've misread the text, both Boltgun and Bolt Pistol can be replaced by a Plasma Pistol but you can't have more than 1 plasma pistol per model
The Aspiring Champion can have a plasma pistol. Yes. But also:
>"For every 5 models in the unit, 1 legionary's **boltgun** may be replaced with one of the following... ...plasma pistol..."
Here's my suggested change...
>"For every 5 models in the unit, 1 legionary's *bolt pistol may be replaced with a plasma pistol*, or their boltgun may be replaced with one of the following..." [remove plasma pistol from the list]
It's a super small change and represents the kit better, imho. I have no issues with the Aspiring Champion gear, and limiting plasma pistol to 1 on a Champion and 1 on a legionary makes sense, too.
Ah, I see what you mean now. I actually feel it might be intentional though.
A little unrelated but I felt the bit that said "duplicates are not allowed" was a little unclear. Does that imply that if the Champion takes a plasma pistol, a legionary can't? I'd like that to be confirmed too.
Yea, sorry it is a bit of a random obscure thing to be irritated by tbh 🤣.
My opinion on the pistol duplicates thing is just to assume the "rules as intended" is to let you make a squad out of 1 box. So, a maximum of 2 plasma pistols in the squad, they probably intend 1 on champion and 1 on a legionary.
There isn't really much of a reason to put 2 plasma pistols on legionaries and then equip the champion with 2 melee weapons. But if you did that, personally, I'd be totally chill about it. It might be fun to have a fist and a sword to give him the option of accursed/heavy attacks. Or 2 claws for rule of cool :P
That is a good point actually. I've come into this conversation without actually owning a box of legionaires (I use the HH Mark III models) but what you've said actually makes perfect sense.
MkIII? I see you are also a warlord of culture! :P
I've got a box of MkVI myself with alternate heads and shoulders. I'm planning to kitbash them into Chosen, but I'm finishing off some other models first and patiently waiting for the new datasheets, as it looks like combi weapons are going to be different, and as elites they might have a unique unit ability.
Exciting times!
>It's a super small change and represents the kit better, imho. I have no issues with the Aspiring Champion gear, and limiting plasma pistol to 1 on a Champion and 1 on a legionary makes sense, too.
I'm still disappointed you can't do this.
The Legionary kit does indeed have only 2 left-handed plasma pistols, but the Raptor kit has at least one right-handed one. I built some gunslinger raptor champions back in 8e, and I just think they look neat. Bummed that they're still not strictly legal.
I think back then, they were happier to mix right and left-handed for 1-handed weapons because they encouraged kitbashing more. It's gone out of style with more modern kits.
I like the idea of a raptor with dual pistols, kinda like the heresey era dual pistol guys, who I believe can also have jump packs?
Moritats, I think? I'm less hip to 30k stuff.
The Raptor kit also has some right and left handed chainswords, so I think the idea was that if you want to run a pistol on the champ and two pistols in the squad you'd need at least one right handed one. I just like the idea because to my mind that's what Raptors are; they're fast moving special weapons guys that can bully soft targets in a pinch.
Yea, exactly. I'm hoping these new weapon statlines being a bit more balanced means more free wargear. I enjoy seeing squads with options for specialisations. Raptors are a fun example, but I rarely saw them played with any upgrades.
I feel that the power of dark pacts is going to heavily rely on DA's having a RR leadership aura, as having the chance to peril every time you activate is gonna suuuuuck. And ain't no way I'm using RR leadership on Abby when I can do RR hits and fish for 6's with my entire army.
Rerolling your Dark Pact roll also seems to be what Icons do now, so Chosen, Legionaries, Bikers have that padding. Gives us a reason to take the icon on possessed, too.
For sure. Hopefully we'll be able to put icons on all the core units again (terminators and havoc's again).
D3 MW still feels too high. 1MW would be acceptable.
At the risk of taking D3 mortal wounds, instead of getting it for free based on the turn. Plus they lose out on +2 fire attacks. This seems like a nerf, doesn't it?
Everything looks fine, I guess, we don't have all the rules so it's hard to say what will be good or bad.
What does bother me is how they always hype up the Legionaires squad as a Swiss army knife unit. Here's all these upgrades, so many options, do whatever you want.... VotLW is melee only....so it's a melee unit, if you don't use it as a melee unit you're not getting all of its benefits.
Playing CSM in Vadinax, where the crusade rules give you a bunch of ways to modify the Wanton system, can confirm; obliterators with 6s that always explode is *fun.*
Plus, being able to throw a bucket of dice at a tough target and autowound on 6s is cool.
You have 72% chance to not miss your leadership test with 6ld, and with the icon you have only 7% chance to miss it with the reroll. Now what's left to see if the cost of the icon. What is nice is the fact you can try to auto-wound, making saturation vs high T units more worth it (and with now every vehicule/monster who got more than T8...)
But we won't be able to see if they'll still suck or not until we get the whole thing.
I'm still sad we can't get two of the same special weapon, and the fact that balefire tome suck now unless they get a mark-specific spell... Because they weren't taken for the smite (it was nice yes) but for the supportive capability they could give.
The math is for legionnaires but they mention cultist doing it and I assume it will be less secure for our merely mortal friends.
I'm with you for the balefire tome, lacks favor
The whole thing I'm curious is the "special unit" like daemon engine, obli, possessed and the likes, will get a possibility to reroll thoses test, because it'll suck to have 1/4 chance to loose 3W on a obli or daemon engine for 1/6 chance for every hit to get an effect...
I do too, I like the contrast with loyalists. Loyalists get coordinated, precise "by our focused fire combined", CSM get selfish "to whom it may concern" power boosts that sometimes hurt them.
Yeah fluff wise it's nice, but game wise if you don't comit you have basically no army rule. And when it could finish your vehicule/monster... That's a feel bad
We'll see if non chaos icon unit will have some things to lessen the blow.
Do you *really* care if a few more cultists die? You make the test after the unit shoots or fights, so you don't lose any output, and if a few mortal servants burn themselves out from too much Chaos Juice, it's not like the galaxy has a shortage of petty heretics.
I see Dark Pact as a boring rule... Legionaries will be declaring it almost every turn and basically auto passing the Ld test, why not just give it to them free?
Because they'll want unit without icon (who'll be I guess our heavy hitters) to get somes MW with 28% chances of failing their ld test, because chaos can't be too strong and need some tone down, contrary to SM.
Ugh I'm dubious about Dark Pacts. It's not very thematic despite trying to be. A game of 40k represents a skirmish of a few intense minutes. Do you often read in the lore of random Legionaries dying or getting mutilated every minute during a battle because they prayed to the Dark Gods for better aim ? Do you really want your 18 pts model dying because you tried getting a few more (non-guaranteed) hits ? And how does this fit with Renegade CSM, that don't pray to Chaos ?
Not convinced about this, I hope it's only a detachment rule or something that we can avoid.
I like to think it can be reinterpreted fluff wise for renegade marines, could be trying to overclock their equipment or take a riskier stance to get an advantage, leading to them maybe taking some extra damage in return
Or we could actually get rules for legions like we do for loyalist chapters?
I get where you are coming from though and had a similar thought for iron warriors but not every gun is a plasma rifle. A 10000 year old relic chain cannon doesn't overheat or explode.
> Do you often read in the lore of random Legionaries dying or getting mutilated every minute during a battle because they prayed to the Dark Gods for better aim ? Do you really want your 18 pts model dying because you tried getting a few more (non-guaranteed) hits ? And how does this fit with Renegade CSM, that don't pray to Chaos ?
You're not using this every single time you swing or shoot at something. Early potshots when most of your weapons are out of range and you're plinking away with your heavy weapon, or legionaries clearing chaff that they'll win against without this you won't take the risk.
This is for the fights that count, the volley that you need to *hurt*, the do-or-die confrontation with a powerful enemy, the push to flip an objective and pull ahead.
An army-wide trait that can be completely ignored and adds a layer of RNG on top of an already RNG-heavy game is not a smart gameplay design in my opinion. The Doctrines are always in effect and are just a flat bonus that you can chose. This, is a stratagem at best.
Doctrines aren't always in effect, each is a once per game ability that predominately makes loyalist marines more mobile and opens up options. Which is very strong, movement is great. That said, doctrines are a detachment ability, we have not yet seen what any of our detachments do. This is more comparable to Oaths of Moment, which is powerful, sure, but it's a focus fire ability. Ours is more "to whom it may concern."
Also, this is literally a modified iteration of our army-wide rule right now, just with another option, the chance to burn us a little, and not limited by what round we're in.
Or you don't pull ahead and that extra damage you pushed for never happens.. and ontop of that you may lose your own models.
The downside really sucks, you can kill your own guys and do nothing if super unlucky.. I hate needing to be lucky in strategy games, this sucks for an army rule.
Off the back of loyalists getting their doctrines changed to solid strong as fuck tested game mechanics.
Honestly makes me think to a line in Hammer&Bolter: Artefacts "Suspicion has kept us alive many times, but boldness has brought us victory". The idea of high risk high reward.
I dunno, I kinda like it...also like the idea of 20 cultists throwing out auto wounds yelling "whats that about my weak S3 pistols!!!"
\*\*edit: also it can be avoided, the rule states it as a choice, you can choose to use dark pact or play it safe
It’s Faction Rule like Oath of Moment.
It is thematic tbh. Maybe it’s a bit more spammable, but dude - Combi-Bolter Terminators spraying MW’s with wound rerolls? 🤩
EDIT - my bad, the second option isn’t Devastating Wounds, but Sustained Hits.
I guess it depends on how many detachment options we'll get per faction at launch. I think they mentioned something about new detachments being part of new codices
I’m guessing you weren’t here for chaos boons. Hehe. This is VERY fluffy. I was hoping for a type of boon system again and while I was hoping for more interesting stuff than x on roll of 6 I do like it.
Have we seen or heard what specific sub-factions (eg WordBearers) will get specially within this ruleset? I haven't been paying close enough attention and think I must have missed it
Basically, it looks like most subfactions don't exist.
For loyalists it looks like they might have some sort of "if you run this salamanders primaris character, you are now salamanders, so cant also take this iron hands character" type rule that would exclude them from bringing Robby G in any random SM army (as he has ultra faction keyword).
So, for the moment at least, CSM subfactions without unique models are just "CSM". And as Abbadon isn't even technically Black Legion now (he doesn't have a second keywordlike Robby did), I guess "CSM" is basically Black Legion for now.
It's possible that the CSM codex in spring 2024 will include subfaction flavoured detachments, but they might not even be locked to subfactions, tbh. Especially if those subfactions have no unique models (like word bearers).
I'd guess there will be some kind of daemonkin and some kind of cultist flavoured detachments, so running a more flavourful Word Bearers army will be easier. But we don't really know yet.
Sub factions seem to be gone entirely. Different detachments will have the flavor of different sub factions with requiring a specific paint job, so we will likely see a possessed/daemonkin heavy detachment that would fit the flavor of the word bearers. I personally think this is an awesome design decision that will give use tons of different ways to play our armies
I have two Legionaries squads built and now I'm not sure what to do with my third I'm going to build.
Aspiring champion with icon, plasma pistol and heavy weapon, 1 heavy melee weapon, 8 chainswords.
Aspiring Champion with icon plasma pistol and heavy weapon, 1 acolyte, 1 Reaper Chaincannon, 1 Heavy Bolter, 6 Boltguns
Now my third squad I'm really not sure if another melee squad is better or getting another shooty squad with a Missile Cannon and/or Plasma Rifle. Or doing 2x5 squads and doing 1 melee squad of 5 and a ranged squad of 5 with something like a missile launcher or meltagun...
I suggest melee. CSM are typically a melee focused army and I doubt this will change even in the new edition. Certainly most of the ranged weapons we have seen don’t seem that interesting.
Really liking that characters are actually feeling pretty strong this edition.
Never liked that the big faction leader felt like a toss up between "waste of money" and "auto include."
Still undecided-I don't know if Custodes or CSM will be my next 40k army.
We haven't seen their datasheet yet, every unit shown so far has had an ability baked in and we don't know what Obliterators will have up their fleshmetal sleeves
Well no, almost at the bottom we saw their new gun profile. The new one is just three options, A=D3 S12 AP-3 D4, A=D6 S8 AP-2 D2 and A=D6+3 S5 AP-1 D1.
That's kinda boring tho
Isn't it basically the same as the old one, just a few less shots and adjusted for higher toughness? Plus each type having its own special rule is fun.
I'm saying we haven't seen the rest of the datasheet. They may get bonus shots/damage/etc against certain units, they may get the ability to double-down on Dark Pacts, we have literally no idea.
Also, at least each Fleshmetal Guns profile now has its own keyword which is pretty neat. Top profile is doing 6 damage to vehicles within 12"
Yea, I'm really not a fan of random attacks (especially in the form of Dx instead of Dx+y) on expensive units. My experience with obliterators during 8th and 9th has been alot of feast or famine, and they generally feel they are costed as if you're performing well above average, imo.
But I'm a casual scrub, so maybe my view is way off :P
At least since we got codex in 9th ed, we have less points of swingy randomness. So maybe they'll be basically fine but not great on their own against tanks, which is what I really wished they were!
Maybe they can shoot twice if stationary, or something? But maybe that would make them way too good with sustained hits against chaff, etc?
If they cost like 60pts/model, they'll be fine. But if they stay at 90+ like 9th ed, they'll be sadly benchef because they are WAY too swingy. D6 shot on auto-cannon is unreliable as hell, same as d3 on the anti-tank one. You get 3 shot they are worth it, you get 1 shot they are useless. They should have made 2d3 for the auto-cannon at least and flat 3 for the anti-tank.
Exactly. Back in 8th ed codex, I often remember praying to not roll 1 when generating their D3 damage. If I rolled a 1, it often meant they were useless against their primary target. It wasn't the same as having "D3 damage" across their 6x3 (x2 for endless cacophony) shots, either. It was a very small number of dice having a very large impact.
Master of Possession used to help a bit, and rerolling hits and wounds of 1 on top of that generally evened it all out. But now in 9th and 10th we're stuck with the very awkward 3D3 shots for a squad of almost 300 points. Very sketchy.
Drop the melta rule and give me 2 shots each! I'd really appreciate it, tbh. XD
I'll still play them, but I'll have to be cautious as my playgroup has lots of vehicles, and my anti vehicle options are limited mainly to havocs and Obliterators atm (and dreadnoughts). I probably need to build some chainfist terminators and maybe get a good anti-tank tank to round things out a bit more. (Hoping laser vindicator remains a good looking option!)
They were always just a few shots short of being useful for me. So less shots is not what I wanted. At least we can dark pact and get sustained hits 2 on the warp hail. Might be fun.
Yea, that's a good way to characterise them.
D3 shots is always kinda underwhelming in the same way D6 damage is for havoc lascannons. Even D3+1 shots for obliterators or D6+2 damage for havoc lascannons would be a real quality of life improvement for both in terms of consistent anti tank. Especially if re-rolling or getting bonus to hit/wound is much less common.
I do think volume fire could be lots of fun against non-vehicles, tho. Any source of rerolling hits could be fun, too!
I dunno oblits look a lot better to me now
Deep strikes, drop in, melta profile does flat 6 damage within 12"
Blast giving 1 extra shot per 5 models in the unit with the salvo shot
Exploding 6s profile on warp hail
All with a possible additional exploding 6s buff every round
I still think I love the 8th Ed profile the most though
They literally added more variety to each weapon profile with the new weapon tag system, while also rebalancing it so you actually have a reason to pick the biggest profile now. How is that more boring than 9th?
So what I'm hearing is obliterates go up in value as they are flexible anti everything and I can give them autowounding 6s or exploding 6s whenever I feel like.
WOOOOOOO!!!!!!
That's apparently the mechanic of the "slaves to darkness" detachment, and their stratagems key off it. Actually, I expect all detachments will do something with marks, because the Legionaries datacard doesn't even have undivided.
EDIT: On second thought, now I'm thinking the rest of them won't use them at all. But who knows, the codex is a year away.
Making them a detachment ability is probably smart, tbh. Heretic Astartes are, ah, a diverse bunch, and having some detachments be more god-oriented than others helps represent the spectrum from the guys chanting Khorne's name as they pile into combat, through the warbands of Alpha Legion or Iron Warriors who despise the gods and those devoted to them.
Sure, they're still making Dark Pacts, but the running theme of CSM falling into the service of patron gods without necessarily admitting that to themselves, bargaining for power and telling themselves that they're getting the better end of the deal, that they're in control, is a big part of the faction's identity, and I like this representation of it.
I honestly like the flavour of Dark Pact, but I also feel a little bit screwed over when looking at Oath of Moment. Why is Dark Pact simultaneously a *worse* buff while also having a huge downside of sometimes doing MW to your own units? Wouldn't it be way more logical that the ability that sometimes kills your own models is also the strongest, considering the downside?
At this point, I think CSM absolutely needs to have cheaper units compared to SM across the board to make up for both a weaker army rule, but also the fact that you'll be killing yourself simply by using the army rule.
Oaths work only on one enemy unit at a time. You'll be shooting at it with like a quarter of your army at most, unless it's ridiculously tough. Pact, however, can work whenever you want on whoever you want.
Yes, I agree about the strength of being able to do it anywhere, but you also do have to potentially take a smite to the face on *every* unit you want to get the buff.
And yes, OoM is only a single target, but you can prioritize something important. The strength of that heavily depends on the opponent army (not so good on swarm armies, amazing on low model count armies).
Both have strengths, I just feel like having to make a big gamble every time we want to use our army rule should come with a big greater reward. At the very least I won't say the Dark Pact buff is *better* than OoM, and I feel like it honestly should be directly better considering you gamble your own models.
It’s not a big gamble really is it though. You have to roll higher than a 6 on 2d6 (72% chance) with a reroll (now somewhere in the 85% region - guess we’re all taking icons), and then if you fail both, you take between 1 and 3 wounds. So on an average day, somewhere between every 10 and 30 rolls you splatter a terminator or a possessed across the board. I think that’s pretty decent for 6’s autowound or 6’s explode, you’re choice. I’m very much looking forward to ramming a 10 man blob of possessed into anything that moves and watch them plaster blood over everything.
>with a reroll (now somewhere in the 85% region - guess we’re all taking icons)
We only have 4 units with Icons, Legionaries, Possessed, Bikers and Chosen. We don't know how many will in 10th, but it is probably made to fit content of boxes.
But I do agree it's not that huge of a deal, and I do like the idea of this mechanic. However, compared to literally no gamble of OoM, it is still a big downside. And I still think for having that, it should also feel stronger than OoM. Gain more, but might lose something.
I'd wait and see what other rules interactions there are. Loyalist terminators have their own benefits to OoM. We may see things that boost it further or even ignore the leadership test. I do agree that it does sting to be the first faction shown to have an actual negative in our ability though.
I’m hoping we keep marks of chaos because they’re really fun and can make 2 CSM armies feel very different to play against.
I do wonder if, given the “get a thing but maybe take mortal wounds” idea has been rolled out across the army, whether we’ll lose the demon weapons rules. I hope not, but think I’d agree that the downsides were too much if you had to take 2 leadership tests per turn and potentially take 2D3 mortals, when you get it for free now. That would feel like too much (although maybe they’ll roll it in to the demon weapon? “You must always take a dark pact each turn, plus you ignore invulns etc.”?)
Anyway: I like the rule. I don’t play chaos because I want to win, I play chaos because I want my enemies to suffer demonic torments and if that means my character with the Armour Diabolous takes mortal wounds, explodes and takes the enemy with them, so be it.
So the aspiring champ can replace his bolt gun with a chainsword, and his bolt pistol with a chainsword, does that mean he’ll get 8 chainsword attacks? Cause if so I want that just for the coolness factor.
I doubt it - the whole squad also gets basic ccw.
So every chainsword guy would get 4 chainsword attacks and 3 ccw attacks. And a double chainsword guy would get 8 chainsword attacks and 3 ccw attacks? That would be ridiculous; I think each model has to choose one melee profile to attack with.
What the fuck? So we don't get dedications to gods anymore at all, outside of Abby and maybe the cult marines? I highly doubt that we're going to get a detachment that allows us to pick a dedication for every single unit so it's either going to be monogod or no dedication at all.
The Dark Pacts is okay I guess, makes more sense than the organized "doctrines" from before.
They reference that being dedicated to the gods is still a thing that can be done in the stratagem preview section. We just don't know how it works yet.
Seeing as the detachment abilities we've seen thus far have been "select 1/3 abilities to apply to your entire army for a turn" and "select 1/3 abilities to apply to your entire army for the rest of the game", I highly doubt that we're gonna get a "select 1/5 dedications for every unit in your army to apply for a turn (wouldn't make a lick of sense) or for the entire game (extremely clunky, hard to keep track of)".
We know full well that we've got at least 5 stratagems specific to the 'Slaves to Darkness' Detachment which all have a normal effect and an added effect when the unit has the correct keyword. The Detachment ability isn't known yet, but I can be pretty fucking certain that it isn't what I described above. And since armies only have a single faction rule AND Legionaries clearly don't have mark/dedication (whereas Abby does), we can infer that we aren't going to be getting any.
Not only would it be hilariously stupid for us to get a detachment rule that is extremely complex \*and only gives a keyword\* that interacts with a single stratagem (Q&A confirmed that CP starts at 0, +1 per command phase), but that would be beyond the pale even for the 40k design team (though they do seem to be plumbing the depths at just how far down the bar can go). And we *definitely* won't be getting the ability to give ourselves a keyword AND a buff to go with it, as that would put us leagues above everybody else.
So yeah, we kinda fucked. Thanks, 40k design team. I wonder how they're going to fuck up Orks, Eldar and Daemons, the other factions I play(ed).
We don't know how it works, but we do know it's part of the detachment rules. It literally says:
"How does one pledge themselves to a specific god and gain their boons, exactly? That’s also part of the Detachment rule for the Slaves to Darkness Detachment"
Ehhh... Still seems like it's either going to be clunky as hell or monogod or completely nonsensical. Not even the 40k design team can pull all three but two out of three is certainly in the field of possibility.
But per the other two detachment rules that we have, *they apply to the entire army* for X duration. For there to be any flavor *at all* to CSM, you would have to be able to select marks on a unit-to-unit basis (mixed god worship is literally what the Word Bearers and to a lesser extent Black Legion and Red Corsairs are about).
In essence, with our current understanding of Detachment rules (sample size of two), we get a buff (hypothetically god dedications) for our army for a duration.
\- Unit by unit would be impossible to keep track of and clunky as all hell.
\- Armywide selection would screw over multigod armies and cause all sorts of illogical bullshit.
\- Turn based would utterly ruin actual dedicated units in either case.
\- Full game length effects would at least be reasonable, but would fall apart on both the unit-by-unit and armywide basis.
Let's take an example: I have in my army a *very* Khorne looking unit. I'm talking brass, skulls, chains, the whole works. I also have a unit of very Slaaneshi marines, which you are free to imagine.
Now, if the design team in their infinite wisdom gives us a turn-based unit-by unit selection, then these guys are probably going to get picked with their god of choice. Other units might waver on their dedication (which the Dark Gods accept for some reason). For units that aren't very clearly marked, however, keeping track of which dedication they've decided to pick would be a huge hassle. Much the same logic applies to a full game length effect, only it would make more sense for followers of chaos undecided.
But, when it comes to an armywide selection, either of these units in my collection are screwed. If I take Khorne, the Slaanesh guys are hilariously out of place and vice versa. If I pick Undivided, my extremely clearly God-dedicated units don't get any benefits that the rest of the scum in the army do.
So, in essence, any kind of system for this would be screwed beyond belief. The dedications of people who aren't dedicated changing every turn doesn't really make any sense (outside of maybe Word Bearers) and monogod screws over every varied army.
And all of this isn't even getting to the fact that we are either getting the keywords which means that *we have to pay CP* in order to get any use out of our Detachment Rule or then we're getting a keyword *and* a rule in which case we're getting what other armies get *plus* an empowered stratagem.
Sorry if my response is a bit rambly, I got distracted in the middle of this by having to explain the same concept to a friend while also trying to pay attention to a podcast.
>Ehhh... Still seems like it's either going to be clunky as hell or monogod or completely nonsensical. Not even the 40k design team can pull all three but two out of three is certainly in the field of possibility.
It sounds like you just don't wanna admit you're wrong.
I feel like you’re *way* overthinking this, bud. Isn’t the most likely scenario that we can just put whatever Mark we like on whatever unit we like, just like before? Doesn’t seem clunky or complicated at all. This unit has a Mark of Khorne, this unit has a Mark of Nurgle. Only now it will somehow be rolled into the detachment ability rather than just a point upgrade? That seems most likely to me. Obviously the devils in the details, so for example we have no idea if every unit can take a Mark or if it’s locked by unit type like it is now (no Marks on Possessed, Warp Talons, etc).
Honestly, my guess is that we end up with being able to select a god (or chaos undivided) for most units pregame. It may be that the stratagem is the only effect of that, which isn't great sure. And then maybe mono god detachments with more specific benefits fitting that god.
But I'm not going to panic based on extrapolation from very limited data. Especially since he haven't actually seen the full 2 page spread for any detachment. There's still room for more that we haven't seen yet for Marines and Tyranids too. 🤷
I'm not sure that it's really optimism. I certainly won't be surprised if the final result isn't great. I just am trying not to jump to conclusions just because the previews don't contain all of the information.
I really don't like the Dark Pact. Why tyranids get the same buffs for whole army for free, but we must pay the prays for every unit using it? Like, if it would give us sustained hits 2 and lethal hits on 5+ then yes, it would be really good: great power for the great price. Now it looks like a joke
Tyranids army rules are synapse and shadow in the warp. I feel this is roughly equivalent in power. We don’t k ow the detachment t rules yet which would be all game buffs. Most likely in the form of marks.
Tyranids only get their rules against certain targets - Lethal against vehicles and monsters, Sustained against infantry. And they can only get one of two for the game.
We can get either, whenever we want against whoever we want.
Glad Abby lost his wound cap, reroll wds for legionaires is spicy, not a huge fan of the pact rule especially since ypu have to roll for it every time and can take mortals, so much for speeding things up. Interested to see more about marks and how emperors children work if we don't fit legion traits and rules. Hopefully noise marines are still battle line for EC.
I'm a little confused.
It says that the aspiring champion may replace their boltgun with a heavy melee weapon. It also says that the aspiring champion may replace their bolt pistol with a heavy melee weapon. But it doesn't have the asterisk next to either. So can the aspiring champion take two heavy melee weapons?
I love how they incorporated the flavour of both Let the Galaxy Burn and the marks of Chaos God's into one faction trait - Dark Pacts. Really good game design.
Oh man, Legionary Champions are doing good! Night Lords can now take Lightning Claws again under Accursed weapons. However the chance to take 2 big axes per squad ("heavy melee weapons") is so tempting.
Have they clarified the rules on take two melee weapons? Do you just get double the attacks?
They have not to my knowledge While I douht that would be the case, it would be cool of they somehow got twinlinked
They already reroll wounds, two linked would be redundant.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a core rule!
While they have not, it is highly unlikely that you will get to swing with all the melee weapons you're equipped with. It's going to be "Pick one melee weapon you're equipped with, and make the relevant numbers of Attacks with it". Why you ask? [Because Legionaries come stock with a "Close Combat Weapon"](https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/9NssgmUQeN7AM67t.jpg) (3A 3+ 4/0/1), and can replace their Boltgun for an Astartes Chainsword (4A 3+ 4/-1/1)... without losing said CCW. I don't see GW being stupid enough to have Legionaries running around making 7A each with easy access to exploding 6s (Dark Pacts) and re-roll a Wound roll of 1/the Wound roll (Veterans of the Long War) - while also having Abaddon granting them full re-roll to the Hit roll if he is in the vicinity.
I'm curious about this, two chainswords and the champion potentially slapping 8 attacks is appealing to me.
So am I right that the champ can have melee weapons as written, and only one other legionary can have a ‘heavy melee weapon’ whether it’s 5 or 10 man squad? Would be better if the heavy melee weapon was in the ‘for every 5 models in the unit…’ part
You're correct, it's 1 per squad (ignoring the champ). It's probably to keep in line with what's in the box to be fair, which I don't dislike. In all honesty, running 5 man squads is better anyway to max your Heavy Melee and/or Accursed weapons and special weapons anyway, so it's no big loss.
Kind of hoping the less-enthusiastic CSM (IW, NL, AL sometimes) get a little more thematically-appropriate options in detachments down the road. What they showed today is very "CHAOS CHAOS". At least the Legionary KT box I built is still all legal. And I appreciate that we still get to take such a wide variety of special weapons in Legionary squads.
Does that mean if i built all the operatives in the legionary KT i can run them as two 5 man squads now?
So the balefire tome is just a gun now? Psychic seems very dull in the new edition.
Yeah I REAAALLY hope they just haven't uncovered the full rules for psychic powers because I was really excited building a psyker-heavy army of Word Bearers. If half of the powers turn out to just be slightly better bolters I'll be disappointed.
the swarmlord got its 2 powers from the hive mind discipline turned into a gun too. I doubt it gets much better than that for each non-support non-gk/ts psyker.
Allegedly, one of the testers (this guy is a big leaker/a valid source, from what I was told) said that there was a lot of cool stuff going on with Psykers this ED and that he's planning on playing TSons because they're the funnest army he got to try. Or at least, the funnest Chaos army.
Looks a lot like "Source: trust me bro" but I want to believe
There are a few trustworthy sources, though. I mean, it technically still is a "bro trust me" moment, but their track record at least means they earned that trust.
Yeah but if you don't name your source, it is a "trust me bro" moment.
That's a "I heard something from a guy who knows a guy who knows something". Do you have a source?
This guy is apparently a trusted leaker, he posted it in the TSons discord. Take it what you will.
Who is "this guy"? Does he have a name?
Haha. If he’s an official play tester, he could lose his job for leaking. I doubt he’s giving out his name, and if he was it might be “not cool” to share it around and get the guy in trouble.
[Psychic RUmor Hope for psychic nerds](https://bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/monthly_2023_04/4B745FC4-8021-46A5-9FD5-8D08AC867952.thumb.jpeg.bba3b8e78a96b819f309052869e3477d.jpeg)
Overall I like the direction of CSM in 10th, but this is probably my biggest problem from the article - not only is it exceptionally boring to not give the Balefire Tome an actual ability. I can live with normal psykers getting a gun + one ability, the current discipline system is horribly balanced anyway with half the powers being worthless. The worst part is probably that the Balefire gun is also pretty bad. Sure, better than a boltgun, but I still don't see a reason to run ranged Legionaries, and now the Balefire Tome is completely useless for melee squads.
Ya, I made my legionnaires with balefire tomes. I chose CSM because I love psychic powers so much. I was considering thousand sons for even more psychic goodness, but they gutted the customization, and now it looks like psychic powers in general are just gutted. What’s the point if it’s just another gun?
>Ya, I made my legionnaires with balefire tomes. I chose CSM because I love psychic powers so much. I was considering thousand sons for even more psychic goodness, but they gutted the customization, and now it looks like psychic powers in general are just gutted. Allegedly, one of the testers (this guy is a big leaker/a valid source, from what I was told) said that there was a lot of cool stuff going on with Psykers this ED and that he's planning on playing TSons because they're the funnest army he got to try. Or at least, the funnest Chaos army.
Well, for one, it's a gun on a dude's backpack. He can still have a chainsword and pistol to wreck face in melee but he can zorch a guy with warp powet first. Also, it has the keyword [psychic] as do all the other power "guns" but no indication yet wtf that means. We also have not seen any powers that are not attacks and which may influence other phases like movement. So, let's wait for the actual rules before we get ourselves worked up. So far, a 10 man melee legionary squad with 2 heavy melee weapons in a rhino sounds pretty good to me.
We’ve already seen some use of “Pyschic” keyword, for example the librarian pyschic hood give the unit a 4+ feel no pain against psychic attacks, in terms of movement they previewed Da jump that went off on a 2+ so people need to just chill until we see the full picture
I’m still holding out hope that the marks from the detachment rules also come with an out of phase ability.
The psychic rules have been disappointing so far for sure.
Interesting to see the parallels and differences between Abaddon and Guilliman. Both have 2+ / 4++ with about the same number of wounds, both have the same leadership, both have similar offensive outputs, both have three abilities and pick one to buff their armies, both have some degree of CP manipulation. Where they differ is that Abaddon joins units (he is a Leader), whereas Guilliman does not. To compensate, Guilliman has the new equivalent of Look Out Sir if he’s near marines, has a much higher Toughness (5 versus 9!), and can return from the dead with Armour of Fate. Guilliman is also faster. Both look to be interesting build-around centrepieces, but I like the idea of Abaddon being able to lead a big blob of Terminators and menace the centre of the board. I should probably get around to assembling and painting mine…
No wound phase cap on Abb…interesting.
Abaddon has 1 melee attack more than Guilliman. I consider that an absolute win.
At least 1 more attack when wanting the "smash" choice. Still need the fight phase rules, but the Legionaries card comes close to confirming that you have to pick a weapon to fight with. Unless we think chainsword legionaries are getting 7 attacks. Which would be awesome, but a bit silly.
So all autocannons will get the predator destructor’s AP-1 and 3 damage. What exactly do you want to shoot this at? What has 3+ wounds but crappy saves? Orks?
Probably aiming to make it for transports and the like with str 9.
Doing some math, looks like it does have a leg up on the chain cannon vs a rhino. In a 10 man squad, you can’t double up heavy weapons, so it may be the best runner up behind a lascannon for anti-armor.
Chosen, possessed, 3 wounds and going to a 4+ or die Light vehicles like rhinos, orks, marines.
Heretic astartes mounted unit? Really? Buff from Abaddon in his profile
Maybe they don't want to call all mounted/cavalry units "bikers" in 10th ed (not sure if rough riders are "bikers"?). Although it would be sweet if we eventually got new mounted CSM to refresh the old bikes.
Currently, there're separate "Biker" and "Cavalry" keywords. It seems that "Mounted" is those two being rolled into one.
Ah ok, I figured it might be something like that. It would make sense.
Do we think that Power Fists are just now "Heavy Melee Weapons"? I figured the Heavy Chainaxe is going to fall into the "HMW" category, but I'd be really surprised to see Power Fists and/or Chainfists go away and turn into something generic like that. *EDIT* No Daemon Blades, either - guess that might just be rolled into Accursed Weapons, huh?
That's how I see it. Same profile as the Terminator power fist I believe. It's good though, it's a lot easier to get a hold of power fists than it is for heavy chain axes.
Only way it makes sense. Powerfists have to be either HMWs or Accursed Weapons and HMW certainly fits them better. And it aligns with the concept of rules matching the box content. I quite like it, though. You get one Heavy Chain Axe per 10 guys IIRC, so I'll be happy to use some alternatives.
Shame I loved daemon blades. In my head I hear the echoes of Beard saying ' DAEMON BLADDDE'
This looks pretty cool, I'm currently in the process of building/painting my first CSM army and these pacts and stratagems seem like they'll add some good options for fluffy yet very useful tools. I have no experience with playing the game yet but this makes me even more excited to start!
As someone who has over 10k in points currently, I'm super excited to see how my boys do in this edition.
That's a huge army! Definitely hoping they'll be a really fun faction to play as, I'm aiming for 2K but I could definitely see myself going higher.
Same here! I bought a combat patrol/legionaries box/abaddon and a demon prince! Very excited to get started on all of this now! Long weekend ahead of me it seems
That's a good starting set! They're really fun to build and paint, I think the daemon prince is my favourite model that I've worked on so far.
I'm in the same boat, trying to get my army ready in time!
Likewise! I've still got a long way to go but I'm hoping to have them ready for 10th.
Lads, relax. This is just a tiny teaser, not the whole codex. It may or may not suck when it’s fully released, but we won’t know until we get everything. No need to panic just yet.
Who's panicking? This is good!
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Which is wild we have army wide on demand access to autowounds on 6 hits or exploding for both shooting and melee. Our Legionaires are improved. Abba can give a 6in bubble of 4+ invuln to infantry. What is to panic about.
It's not mortals on 6s it's auto wounds on 6s. It's pretty boring personally but without seeing any potential legions specific stuff and the benefits of marks It's hard to tell. Hopefully we get some flavour from marks and E.C. keeps noise marines as battle line.
I would consider Dark Pacts waaay better than LTGB.
Having to roll for it every phase you want to use it for every unit is annoying. Wanton was fun and a nice solid and strong built in ability. It's funny you say it's way better but got the ability wrong. Personally not a big fan of the auto wounding mechanic at all in 9th edition, but we will see. Hopefully, marks are more flavourful if legion traits are no longer a thing. It just makes the armies so generic and boring imo.
It’s really starting to look like they are doing away with all of the cool psychic flavor armies had, in favor of a more vehicle heavy meta….
Everyone in my warband will be making dark pacts and overcharging everything every turn. Cant wait!
Looks good tbh. Looking forward to it👍 Super minor nitpick: A little irritated that a legionary's **boltgun** can be replaced with a plasma pistol and not the **bolt pistol** getting replaced. (A mistake that was made in the update to the 9th ed codex that has evidently refused to correct itself). [Edit: This is separate from the Aspiring Champion's wargear.] Modelling a dude with dual pistols isn't really an option with the current kit (all the pistols are left handed) and the revised 8th ed codex had the *correct* option of replacing the bolt **pistol** with a plasma **pistol** (given as an alternative option to replacing the boltgun with a plasma gun), so that squads with all chainswords could also have a plasma pistol or two (including the champion's) in there. It would be nice if they fixed this small issue before printing the new cards (or at least get around to FAQing it this time). Especially as they are pushing for "what's in the box" to be represented by datasheets, haha! If they don't, I guess I'll just continue to ignore the mistake and carry on with the "house rule" with my friends.
I think you've misread the text, both Boltgun and Bolt Pistol can be replaced by a Plasma Pistol but you can't have more than 1 plasma pistol per model
The Aspiring Champion can have a plasma pistol. Yes. But also: >"For every 5 models in the unit, 1 legionary's **boltgun** may be replaced with one of the following... ...plasma pistol..." Here's my suggested change... >"For every 5 models in the unit, 1 legionary's *bolt pistol may be replaced with a plasma pistol*, or their boltgun may be replaced with one of the following..." [remove plasma pistol from the list] It's a super small change and represents the kit better, imho. I have no issues with the Aspiring Champion gear, and limiting plasma pistol to 1 on a Champion and 1 on a legionary makes sense, too.
Ah, I see what you mean now. I actually feel it might be intentional though. A little unrelated but I felt the bit that said "duplicates are not allowed" was a little unclear. Does that imply that if the Champion takes a plasma pistol, a legionary can't? I'd like that to be confirmed too.
Yea, sorry it is a bit of a random obscure thing to be irritated by tbh 🤣. My opinion on the pistol duplicates thing is just to assume the "rules as intended" is to let you make a squad out of 1 box. So, a maximum of 2 plasma pistols in the squad, they probably intend 1 on champion and 1 on a legionary. There isn't really much of a reason to put 2 plasma pistols on legionaries and then equip the champion with 2 melee weapons. But if you did that, personally, I'd be totally chill about it. It might be fun to have a fist and a sword to give him the option of accursed/heavy attacks. Or 2 claws for rule of cool :P
That is a good point actually. I've come into this conversation without actually owning a box of legionaires (I use the HH Mark III models) but what you've said actually makes perfect sense.
MkIII? I see you are also a warlord of culture! :P I've got a box of MkVI myself with alternate heads and shoulders. I'm planning to kitbash them into Chosen, but I'm finishing off some other models first and patiently waiting for the new datasheets, as it looks like combi weapons are going to be different, and as elites they might have a unique unit ability. Exciting times!
Yes! I am also super looking forward to how the new chosen rules might look!
>It's a super small change and represents the kit better, imho. I have no issues with the Aspiring Champion gear, and limiting plasma pistol to 1 on a Champion and 1 on a legionary makes sense, too. I'm still disappointed you can't do this. The Legionary kit does indeed have only 2 left-handed plasma pistols, but the Raptor kit has at least one right-handed one. I built some gunslinger raptor champions back in 8e, and I just think they look neat. Bummed that they're still not strictly legal.
I think back then, they were happier to mix right and left-handed for 1-handed weapons because they encouraged kitbashing more. It's gone out of style with more modern kits. I like the idea of a raptor with dual pistols, kinda like the heresey era dual pistol guys, who I believe can also have jump packs?
Moritats, I think? I'm less hip to 30k stuff. The Raptor kit also has some right and left handed chainswords, so I think the idea was that if you want to run a pistol on the champ and two pistols in the squad you'd need at least one right handed one. I just like the idea because to my mind that's what Raptors are; they're fast moving special weapons guys that can bully soft targets in a pinch.
Yea, exactly. I'm hoping these new weapon statlines being a bit more balanced means more free wargear. I enjoy seeing squads with options for specialisations. Raptors are a fun example, but I rarely saw them played with any upgrades.
I feel that the power of dark pacts is going to heavily rely on DA's having a RR leadership aura, as having the chance to peril every time you activate is gonna suuuuuck. And ain't no way I'm using RR leadership on Abby when I can do RR hits and fish for 6's with my entire army.
Rerolling your Dark Pact roll also seems to be what Icons do now, so Chosen, Legionaries, Bikers have that padding. Gives us a reason to take the icon on possessed, too.
For sure. Hopefully we'll be able to put icons on all the core units again (terminators and havoc's again). D3 MW still feels too high. 1MW would be acceptable.
And raptors please!
Does the introduction of "Dark Pacts" mean they're eliminating the "Let the Galaxy Burn" ability?
Yes. But Dark Pacts basically allow every model to be in Wanton Soup every turn so it's fine.
Not if I just spent 6 months building an army to take advantage of that ability. 9th edition codex hasn't even been out for a year!
Your first edition change? Spare a thought for the poor World Eater and Guard player out there.
Welcome to Warhammer lol it's like this every edition change pretty much
At the risk of taking D3 mortal wounds, instead of getting it for free based on the turn. Plus they lose out on +2 fire attacks. This seems like a nerf, doesn't it?
Abaddon is losing T6 to go to T5? That is curious, seeing how Gulliman is T9. He is a primarch of course, but losing toughness is a weird step.
Abbadon can join a massive unit of terminators though and guilliman can't..
Faction focus: not iron warriors or alpha legion
Everything looks fine, I guess, we don't have all the rules so it's hard to say what will be good or bad. What does bother me is how they always hype up the Legionaires squad as a Swiss army knife unit. Here's all these upgrades, so many options, do whatever you want.... VotLW is melee only....so it's a melee unit, if you don't use it as a melee unit you're not getting all of its benefits.
Yea saw VotLW was melee only. Disappointment.
hate the faction trait, especially after getting the Wanton system last edition
Its more or less everyone is always wanton, but with a chance of taking damage right? Maybe not so bad
Icon bearers will be a must, I think
Yeah this revision is wanton but a bit more dynamic, very cool if you ask me!
Right. And now you can actually feel its impact on heavy weapons instead of it being gone in a turn when half the opponent's army is hidden.
Idk, maybe I'm just a bad diceroller (I am) but lascannons really don't do anything at the best of times, even with exploding 6s.
Playing CSM in Vadinax, where the crusade rules give you a bunch of ways to modify the Wanton system, can confirm; obliterators with 6s that always explode is *fun.* Plus, being able to throw a bucket of dice at a tough target and autowound on 6s is cool.
You have 72% chance to not miss your leadership test with 6ld, and with the icon you have only 7% chance to miss it with the reroll. Now what's left to see if the cost of the icon. What is nice is the fact you can try to auto-wound, making saturation vs high T units more worth it (and with now every vehicule/monster who got more than T8...) But we won't be able to see if they'll still suck or not until we get the whole thing. I'm still sad we can't get two of the same special weapon, and the fact that balefire tome suck now unless they get a mark-specific spell... Because they weren't taken for the smite (it was nice yes) but for the supportive capability they could give.
The math is for legionnaires but they mention cultist doing it and I assume it will be less secure for our merely mortal friends. I'm with you for the balefire tome, lacks favor
The whole thing I'm curious is the "special unit" like daemon engine, obli, possessed and the likes, will get a possibility to reroll thoses test, because it'll suck to have 1/4 chance to loose 3W on a obli or daemon engine for 1/6 chance for every hit to get an effect...
I guess the idea is to take a risk if you want a reward from our gods. I like the fluff. We'll see
I do too, I like the contrast with loyalists. Loyalists get coordinated, precise "by our focused fire combined", CSM get selfish "to whom it may concern" power boosts that sometimes hurt them.
Lovely way to put it, i'm behind that 100%
Yeah fluff wise it's nice, but game wise if you don't comit you have basically no army rule. And when it could finish your vehicule/monster... That's a feel bad We'll see if non chaos icon unit will have some things to lessen the blow.
A good guess would be whatever has an icon right now will in 10th, simply because then it fits with the models. So Legionaries, Possessed and Chosen.
Do you *really* care if a few more cultists die? You make the test after the unit shoots or fights, so you don't lose any output, and if a few mortal servants burn themselves out from too much Chaos Juice, it's not like the galaxy has a shortage of petty heretics.
Of course I care ! I care for all my pets.
Mass bolter legionaires wounding land raiders on 6's, we have become old school necrons.
I see Dark Pact as a boring rule... Legionaries will be declaring it almost every turn and basically auto passing the Ld test, why not just give it to them free?
Because they'll want unit without icon (who'll be I guess our heavy hitters) to get somes MW with 28% chances of failing their ld test, because chaos can't be too strong and need some tone down, contrary to SM.
Ugh I'm dubious about Dark Pacts. It's not very thematic despite trying to be. A game of 40k represents a skirmish of a few intense minutes. Do you often read in the lore of random Legionaries dying or getting mutilated every minute during a battle because they prayed to the Dark Gods for better aim ? Do you really want your 18 pts model dying because you tried getting a few more (non-guaranteed) hits ? And how does this fit with Renegade CSM, that don't pray to Chaos ? Not convinced about this, I hope it's only a detachment rule or something that we can avoid.
I like to think it can be reinterpreted fluff wise for renegade marines, could be trying to overclock their equipment or take a riskier stance to get an advantage, leading to them maybe taking some extra damage in return
Or we could actually get rules for legions like we do for loyalist chapters? I get where you are coming from though and had a similar thought for iron warriors but not every gun is a plasma rifle. A 10000 year old relic chain cannon doesn't overheat or explode.
Nope, it's the army rule.
> Do you often read in the lore of random Legionaries dying or getting mutilated every minute during a battle because they prayed to the Dark Gods for better aim ? Do you really want your 18 pts model dying because you tried getting a few more (non-guaranteed) hits ? And how does this fit with Renegade CSM, that don't pray to Chaos ? You're not using this every single time you swing or shoot at something. Early potshots when most of your weapons are out of range and you're plinking away with your heavy weapon, or legionaries clearing chaff that they'll win against without this you won't take the risk. This is for the fights that count, the volley that you need to *hurt*, the do-or-die confrontation with a powerful enemy, the push to flip an objective and pull ahead.
An army-wide trait that can be completely ignored and adds a layer of RNG on top of an already RNG-heavy game is not a smart gameplay design in my opinion. The Doctrines are always in effect and are just a flat bonus that you can chose. This, is a stratagem at best.
Doctrines aren't always in effect, each is a once per game ability that predominately makes loyalist marines more mobile and opens up options. Which is very strong, movement is great. That said, doctrines are a detachment ability, we have not yet seen what any of our detachments do. This is more comparable to Oaths of Moment, which is powerful, sure, but it's a focus fire ability. Ours is more "to whom it may concern." Also, this is literally a modified iteration of our army-wide rule right now, just with another option, the chance to burn us a little, and not limited by what round we're in.
Or you don't pull ahead and that extra damage you pushed for never happens.. and ontop of that you may lose your own models. The downside really sucks, you can kill your own guys and do nothing if super unlucky.. I hate needing to be lucky in strategy games, this sucks for an army rule. Off the back of loyalists getting their doctrines changed to solid strong as fuck tested game mechanics.
Honestly makes me think to a line in Hammer&Bolter: Artefacts "Suspicion has kept us alive many times, but boldness has brought us victory". The idea of high risk high reward. I dunno, I kinda like it...also like the idea of 20 cultists throwing out auto wounds yelling "whats that about my weak S3 pistols!!!" \*\*edit: also it can be avoided, the rule states it as a choice, you can choose to use dark pact or play it safe
It’s Faction Rule like Oath of Moment. It is thematic tbh. Maybe it’s a bit more spammable, but dude - Combi-Bolter Terminators spraying MW’s with wound rerolls? 🤩 EDIT - my bad, the second option isn’t Devastating Wounds, but Sustained Hits.
lethal hits is not mortal wounds
Made a mistake and edited - sry for the mixup!
Lethal hits is auto wound on a 6 to hit. I think the rule mortal wounds is devastating hits.
Oh damn, Sustained Hits is the second, lol my bad!
It's thematic for word bearers. Less so for iron warriors or alpha legion
I guess it depends on how many detachment options we'll get per faction at launch. I think they mentioned something about new detachments being part of new codices
Are they swapping Let the Galaxy Burn for Dark Pacts?
I have no clue, I may not've fully understood the article
I’m guessing you weren’t here for chaos boons. Hehe. This is VERY fluffy. I was hoping for a type of boon system again and while I was hoping for more interesting stuff than x on roll of 6 I do like it.
Have we seen or heard what specific sub-factions (eg WordBearers) will get specially within this ruleset? I haven't been paying close enough attention and think I must have missed it
Basically, it looks like most subfactions don't exist. For loyalists it looks like they might have some sort of "if you run this salamanders primaris character, you are now salamanders, so cant also take this iron hands character" type rule that would exclude them from bringing Robby G in any random SM army (as he has ultra faction keyword). So, for the moment at least, CSM subfactions without unique models are just "CSM". And as Abbadon isn't even technically Black Legion now (he doesn't have a second keywordlike Robby did), I guess "CSM" is basically Black Legion for now. It's possible that the CSM codex in spring 2024 will include subfaction flavoured detachments, but they might not even be locked to subfactions, tbh. Especially if those subfactions have no unique models (like word bearers). I'd guess there will be some kind of daemonkin and some kind of cultist flavoured detachments, so running a more flavourful Word Bearers army will be easier. But we don't really know yet.
We only have 1 subfaction until the codex comes out. That's how it works for every faction.
Sub factions seem to be gone entirely. Different detachments will have the flavor of different sub factions with requiring a specific paint job, so we will likely see a possessed/daemonkin heavy detachment that would fit the flavor of the word bearers. I personally think this is an awesome design decision that will give use tons of different ways to play our armies
Ooooh, no more wound cap on Abaddon
I have two Legionaries squads built and now I'm not sure what to do with my third I'm going to build. Aspiring champion with icon, plasma pistol and heavy weapon, 1 heavy melee weapon, 8 chainswords. Aspiring Champion with icon plasma pistol and heavy weapon, 1 acolyte, 1 Reaper Chaincannon, 1 Heavy Bolter, 6 Boltguns Now my third squad I'm really not sure if another melee squad is better or getting another shooty squad with a Missile Cannon and/or Plasma Rifle. Or doing 2x5 squads and doing 1 melee squad of 5 and a ranged squad of 5 with something like a missile launcher or meltagun...
I suggest melee. CSM are typically a melee focused army and I doubt this will change even in the new edition. Certainly most of the ranged weapons we have seen don’t seem that interesting.
They seem to be even more melee-focused in 10th as their wound re-roll only works in melee.
Really liking that characters are actually feeling pretty strong this edition. Never liked that the big faction leader felt like a toss up between "waste of money" and "auto include." Still undecided-I don't know if Custodes or CSM will be my next 40k army.
Said it before and I’ll say it again, custodes suck CSM are cool.
Oblits look fucking boring now
We haven't seen their datasheet yet, every unit shown so far has had an ability baked in and we don't know what Obliterators will have up their fleshmetal sleeves
Well no, almost at the bottom we saw their new gun profile. The new one is just three options, A=D3 S12 AP-3 D4, A=D6 S8 AP-2 D2 and A=D6+3 S5 AP-1 D1. That's kinda boring tho
Isn't it basically the same as the old one, just a few less shots and adjusted for higher toughness? Plus each type having its own special rule is fun.
I'm saying we haven't seen the rest of the datasheet. They may get bonus shots/damage/etc against certain units, they may get the ability to double-down on Dark Pacts, we have literally no idea. Also, at least each Fleshmetal Guns profile now has its own keyword which is pretty neat. Top profile is doing 6 damage to vehicles within 12"
Yea, I'm really not a fan of random attacks (especially in the form of Dx instead of Dx+y) on expensive units. My experience with obliterators during 8th and 9th has been alot of feast or famine, and they generally feel they are costed as if you're performing well above average, imo. But I'm a casual scrub, so maybe my view is way off :P At least since we got codex in 9th ed, we have less points of swingy randomness. So maybe they'll be basically fine but not great on their own against tanks, which is what I really wished they were! Maybe they can shoot twice if stationary, or something? But maybe that would make them way too good with sustained hits against chaff, etc?
If they cost like 60pts/model, they'll be fine. But if they stay at 90+ like 9th ed, they'll be sadly benchef because they are WAY too swingy. D6 shot on auto-cannon is unreliable as hell, same as d3 on the anti-tank one. You get 3 shot they are worth it, you get 1 shot they are useless. They should have made 2d3 for the auto-cannon at least and flat 3 for the anti-tank.
Exactly. Back in 8th ed codex, I often remember praying to not roll 1 when generating their D3 damage. If I rolled a 1, it often meant they were useless against their primary target. It wasn't the same as having "D3 damage" across their 6x3 (x2 for endless cacophony) shots, either. It was a very small number of dice having a very large impact. Master of Possession used to help a bit, and rerolling hits and wounds of 1 on top of that generally evened it all out. But now in 9th and 10th we're stuck with the very awkward 3D3 shots for a squad of almost 300 points. Very sketchy. Drop the melta rule and give me 2 shots each! I'd really appreciate it, tbh. XD I'll still play them, but I'll have to be cautious as my playgroup has lots of vehicles, and my anti vehicle options are limited mainly to havocs and Obliterators atm (and dreadnoughts). I probably need to build some chainfist terminators and maybe get a good anti-tank tank to round things out a bit more. (Hoping laser vindicator remains a good looking option!)
They were always just a few shots short of being useful for me. So less shots is not what I wanted. At least we can dark pact and get sustained hits 2 on the warp hail. Might be fun.
Yea, that's a good way to characterise them. D3 shots is always kinda underwhelming in the same way D6 damage is for havoc lascannons. Even D3+1 shots for obliterators or D6+2 damage for havoc lascannons would be a real quality of life improvement for both in terms of consistent anti tank. Especially if re-rolling or getting bonus to hit/wound is much less common. I do think volume fire could be lots of fun against non-vehicles, tho. Any source of rerolling hits could be fun, too!
You also missed out Melta 2 on the anti-tank, Blast on the middle one, and Sustained Hits 1 on the bottom one. Little less boring if you ask me.
That's a *ferocious* profile for an anti-tank weapon, imo. S12, 6 damage per failed save if you can get close? Yowtch.
I dunno oblits look a lot better to me now Deep strikes, drop in, melta profile does flat 6 damage within 12" Blast giving 1 extra shot per 5 models in the unit with the salvo shot Exploding 6s profile on warp hail All with a possible additional exploding 6s buff every round I still think I love the 8th Ed profile the most though
Yeah, they didn't synergize with wantons in 9th. This seems better to me.
They literally added more variety to each weapon profile with the new weapon tag system, while also rebalancing it so you actually have a reason to pick the biggest profile now. How is that more boring than 9th?
They were always boring. Nothing changed. The ability to roll 1s on numbers of shots die has kept them off of my table side since they released.
So what I'm hearing is obliterates go up in value as they are flexible anti everything and I can give them autowounding 6s or exploding 6s whenever I feel like. WOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Best part, I’m pretty sure you can do both, it will just take an extra turn to do both.
No marks of chaos? :/
It does mention you can dedicate a unit to a specific god.
That's apparently the mechanic of the "slaves to darkness" detachment, and their stratagems key off it. Actually, I expect all detachments will do something with marks, because the Legionaries datacard doesn't even have undivided. EDIT: On second thought, now I'm thinking the rest of them won't use them at all. But who knows, the codex is a year away.
Making them a detachment ability is probably smart, tbh. Heretic Astartes are, ah, a diverse bunch, and having some detachments be more god-oriented than others helps represent the spectrum from the guys chanting Khorne's name as they pile into combat, through the warbands of Alpha Legion or Iron Warriors who despise the gods and those devoted to them. Sure, they're still making Dark Pacts, but the running theme of CSM falling into the service of patron gods without necessarily admitting that to themselves, bargaining for power and telling themselves that they're getting the better end of the deal, that they're in control, is a big part of the faction's identity, and I like this representation of it.
Slaves to Darkness is the detachment ability they teased and it apparently allows us to mark units
I assume that’s where the “if your character is a nurgle character” comes in
It might be in a future article
Free wargear baby les gooo!
I honestly like the flavour of Dark Pact, but I also feel a little bit screwed over when looking at Oath of Moment. Why is Dark Pact simultaneously a *worse* buff while also having a huge downside of sometimes doing MW to your own units? Wouldn't it be way more logical that the ability that sometimes kills your own models is also the strongest, considering the downside? At this point, I think CSM absolutely needs to have cheaper units compared to SM across the board to make up for both a weaker army rule, but also the fact that you'll be killing yourself simply by using the army rule.
Oaths work only on one enemy unit at a time. You'll be shooting at it with like a quarter of your army at most, unless it's ridiculously tough. Pact, however, can work whenever you want on whoever you want.
Yes, I agree about the strength of being able to do it anywhere, but you also do have to potentially take a smite to the face on *every* unit you want to get the buff. And yes, OoM is only a single target, but you can prioritize something important. The strength of that heavily depends on the opponent army (not so good on swarm armies, amazing on low model count armies). Both have strengths, I just feel like having to make a big gamble every time we want to use our army rule should come with a big greater reward. At the very least I won't say the Dark Pact buff is *better* than OoM, and I feel like it honestly should be directly better considering you gamble your own models.
It’s not a big gamble really is it though. You have to roll higher than a 6 on 2d6 (72% chance) with a reroll (now somewhere in the 85% region - guess we’re all taking icons), and then if you fail both, you take between 1 and 3 wounds. So on an average day, somewhere between every 10 and 30 rolls you splatter a terminator or a possessed across the board. I think that’s pretty decent for 6’s autowound or 6’s explode, you’re choice. I’m very much looking forward to ramming a 10 man blob of possessed into anything that moves and watch them plaster blood over everything.
>with a reroll (now somewhere in the 85% region - guess we’re all taking icons) We only have 4 units with Icons, Legionaries, Possessed, Bikers and Chosen. We don't know how many will in 10th, but it is probably made to fit content of boxes. But I do agree it's not that huge of a deal, and I do like the idea of this mechanic. However, compared to literally no gamble of OoM, it is still a big downside. And I still think for having that, it should also feel stronger than OoM. Gain more, but might lose something.
I'd wait and see what other rules interactions there are. Loyalist terminators have their own benefits to OoM. We may see things that boost it further or even ignore the leadership test. I do agree that it does sting to be the first faction shown to have an actual negative in our ability though.
I’m hoping we keep marks of chaos because they’re really fun and can make 2 CSM armies feel very different to play against. I do wonder if, given the “get a thing but maybe take mortal wounds” idea has been rolled out across the army, whether we’ll lose the demon weapons rules. I hope not, but think I’d agree that the downsides were too much if you had to take 2 leadership tests per turn and potentially take 2D3 mortals, when you get it for free now. That would feel like too much (although maybe they’ll roll it in to the demon weapon? “You must always take a dark pact each turn, plus you ignore invulns etc.”?) Anyway: I like the rule. I don’t play chaos because I want to win, I play chaos because I want my enemies to suffer demonic torments and if that means my character with the Armour Diabolous takes mortal wounds, explodes and takes the enemy with them, so be it.
So the aspiring champ can replace his bolt gun with a chainsword, and his bolt pistol with a chainsword, does that mean he’ll get 8 chainsword attacks? Cause if so I want that just for the coolness factor.
I doubt it - the whole squad also gets basic ccw. So every chainsword guy would get 4 chainsword attacks and 3 ccw attacks. And a double chainsword guy would get 8 chainsword attacks and 3 ccw attacks? That would be ridiculous; I think each model has to choose one melee profile to attack with.
Lame but also that makes sense how the interaction would play out. Thanks!
It is looking very likely that you will only get to choose one melee profile to use per fight phase.
Fuck it. I'm picking up tau.
What the fuck? So we don't get dedications to gods anymore at all, outside of Abby and maybe the cult marines? I highly doubt that we're going to get a detachment that allows us to pick a dedication for every single unit so it's either going to be monogod or no dedication at all. The Dark Pacts is okay I guess, makes more sense than the organized "doctrines" from before.
They reference that being dedicated to the gods is still a thing that can be done in the stratagem preview section. We just don't know how it works yet.
Seeing as the detachment abilities we've seen thus far have been "select 1/3 abilities to apply to your entire army for a turn" and "select 1/3 abilities to apply to your entire army for the rest of the game", I highly doubt that we're gonna get a "select 1/5 dedications for every unit in your army to apply for a turn (wouldn't make a lick of sense) or for the entire game (extremely clunky, hard to keep track of)". We know full well that we've got at least 5 stratagems specific to the 'Slaves to Darkness' Detachment which all have a normal effect and an added effect when the unit has the correct keyword. The Detachment ability isn't known yet, but I can be pretty fucking certain that it isn't what I described above. And since armies only have a single faction rule AND Legionaries clearly don't have mark/dedication (whereas Abby does), we can infer that we aren't going to be getting any. Not only would it be hilariously stupid for us to get a detachment rule that is extremely complex \*and only gives a keyword\* that interacts with a single stratagem (Q&A confirmed that CP starts at 0, +1 per command phase), but that would be beyond the pale even for the 40k design team (though they do seem to be plumbing the depths at just how far down the bar can go). And we *definitely* won't be getting the ability to give ourselves a keyword AND a buff to go with it, as that would put us leagues above everybody else. So yeah, we kinda fucked. Thanks, 40k design team. I wonder how they're going to fuck up Orks, Eldar and Daemons, the other factions I play(ed).
We don't know how it works, but we do know it's part of the detachment rules. It literally says: "How does one pledge themselves to a specific god and gain their boons, exactly? That’s also part of the Detachment rule for the Slaves to Darkness Detachment"
Ehhh... Still seems like it's either going to be clunky as hell or monogod or completely nonsensical. Not even the 40k design team can pull all three but two out of three is certainly in the field of possibility. But per the other two detachment rules that we have, *they apply to the entire army* for X duration. For there to be any flavor *at all* to CSM, you would have to be able to select marks on a unit-to-unit basis (mixed god worship is literally what the Word Bearers and to a lesser extent Black Legion and Red Corsairs are about). In essence, with our current understanding of Detachment rules (sample size of two), we get a buff (hypothetically god dedications) for our army for a duration. \- Unit by unit would be impossible to keep track of and clunky as all hell. \- Armywide selection would screw over multigod armies and cause all sorts of illogical bullshit. \- Turn based would utterly ruin actual dedicated units in either case. \- Full game length effects would at least be reasonable, but would fall apart on both the unit-by-unit and armywide basis. Let's take an example: I have in my army a *very* Khorne looking unit. I'm talking brass, skulls, chains, the whole works. I also have a unit of very Slaaneshi marines, which you are free to imagine. Now, if the design team in their infinite wisdom gives us a turn-based unit-by unit selection, then these guys are probably going to get picked with their god of choice. Other units might waver on their dedication (which the Dark Gods accept for some reason). For units that aren't very clearly marked, however, keeping track of which dedication they've decided to pick would be a huge hassle. Much the same logic applies to a full game length effect, only it would make more sense for followers of chaos undecided. But, when it comes to an armywide selection, either of these units in my collection are screwed. If I take Khorne, the Slaanesh guys are hilariously out of place and vice versa. If I pick Undivided, my extremely clearly God-dedicated units don't get any benefits that the rest of the scum in the army do. So, in essence, any kind of system for this would be screwed beyond belief. The dedications of people who aren't dedicated changing every turn doesn't really make any sense (outside of maybe Word Bearers) and monogod screws over every varied army. And all of this isn't even getting to the fact that we are either getting the keywords which means that *we have to pay CP* in order to get any use out of our Detachment Rule or then we're getting a keyword *and* a rule in which case we're getting what other armies get *plus* an empowered stratagem. Sorry if my response is a bit rambly, I got distracted in the middle of this by having to explain the same concept to a friend while also trying to pay attention to a podcast.
>Ehhh... Still seems like it's either going to be clunky as hell or monogod or completely nonsensical. Not even the 40k design team can pull all three but two out of three is certainly in the field of possibility. It sounds like you just don't wanna admit you're wrong.
Did you stop reading at that point or did you not understand the rest of the post?
I feel like you’re *way* overthinking this, bud. Isn’t the most likely scenario that we can just put whatever Mark we like on whatever unit we like, just like before? Doesn’t seem clunky or complicated at all. This unit has a Mark of Khorne, this unit has a Mark of Nurgle. Only now it will somehow be rolled into the detachment ability rather than just a point upgrade? That seems most likely to me. Obviously the devils in the details, so for example we have no idea if every unit can take a Mark or if it’s locked by unit type like it is now (no Marks on Possessed, Warp Talons, etc).
Honestly, my guess is that we end up with being able to select a god (or chaos undivided) for most units pregame. It may be that the stratagem is the only effect of that, which isn't great sure. And then maybe mono god detachments with more specific benefits fitting that god. But I'm not going to panic based on extrapolation from very limited data. Especially since he haven't actually seen the full 2 page spread for any detachment. There's still room for more that we haven't seen yet for Marines and Tyranids too. 🤷
I admire your optimism in regards to what the 40k design team is capable of.
I'm not sure that it's really optimism. I certainly won't be surprised if the final result isn't great. I just am trying not to jump to conclusions just because the previews don't contain all of the information.
I really don't like the Dark Pact. Why tyranids get the same buffs for whole army for free, but we must pay the prays for every unit using it? Like, if it would give us sustained hits 2 and lethal hits on 5+ then yes, it would be really good: great power for the great price. Now it looks like a joke
Tyranids army rules are synapse and shadow in the warp. I feel this is roughly equivalent in power. We don’t k ow the detachment t rules yet which would be all game buffs. Most likely in the form of marks.
Tyranids only get their rules against certain targets - Lethal against vehicles and monsters, Sustained against infantry. And they can only get one of two for the game. We can get either, whenever we want against whoever we want.
No plasma gun for our troops?
It’s an option on the back page but the stats are on a separate card for some reason
That's what I get for not reading close enough
Glad Abby lost his wound cap, reroll wds for legionaires is spicy, not a huge fan of the pact rule especially since ypu have to roll for it every time and can take mortals, so much for speeding things up. Interested to see more about marks and how emperors children work if we don't fit legion traits and rules. Hopefully noise marines are still battle line for EC.
So a power fist and heavy chainaxe are the same now?
I'm a little confused. It says that the aspiring champion may replace their boltgun with a heavy melee weapon. It also says that the aspiring champion may replace their bolt pistol with a heavy melee weapon. But it doesn't have the asterisk next to either. So can the aspiring champion take two heavy melee weapons?
I love how they incorporated the flavour of both Let the Galaxy Burn and the marks of Chaos God's into one faction trait - Dark Pacts. Really good game design.