40k 6th Edition New FAQ's

GW Design Studio Staff Photo

Today the new 40k6.0 FAQs hit the Interweb and there was much rejoicing from Rules As Intended players and QQing from Rules As Written players. I am very impressed with GW for listening to their player base and the Interwebz 40k community (bloggers, podcasters, and forum warriors alike) and using their FAQ to fix holes in the rules set. It makes me feel significantly better about paying $50 for a tank model and $65 for an airplane model when GW acts in a responsible and responsive manner.

ANYWAY....As this as an Imperial Guard blog and I an Imperial Guard player, here are the highlights from my POV:

1) Valkyries and Vultures can use Grav Chute Deployment to drop of Special Weapons Squads on turn 2. This is a favorite tactic of mine, especially for taking out the (now nerfed) Deathstar units Nobz & Paladins. Also, 

2) Rough Riders are even more "Teh Suck". Even with a 12" move and the extra S3 attack at I10, their hunting lances are now AP 3. Probably because GW wants you to buy more Valkyrie models. 

3) Leman Russes are WTF AWESOME. Let me get this straight: I can move 6" forward (or backward) and fire ALL THE GUNS at full BS of 3?!?!?!?! Including Lascannons, Heavy Bolters, and Stubbers?

4) Hydras are definitely NOT interceptor. It wasn't a typo. Also, it wasn't a omission that no armies got Skyfire missiles. My guess is that GW wants you to buy more flyers to shoot down the other flyers. 

5) Look Out Sir! Shenanigans are history. Now LOS is allocated to the closest model to the Character. Also, those all-character units are now just plain-old infantry, so no LOS! or Precise Shots on a "6" to hit. 

6) A lot of bullshit people were trying to pull to hit Flyers on regular BS got shut down. I love it when RAW players get told by GW to STFU :D And I THINK that those beam-attacks from the 1KSons that WTF PWND my Vendettas a few games back can't actually hit flyers, or if they are Witchfire need "6"s to hit. 

I don't understand how these two entries are internally consistent:  

Q: Does a weapon that hits automatically, still hit automatically when making a Snap Shot? (p13)

A: Yes.

VS.

Q: How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon that doesn’t need to roll To Hit or hits automatically – interact with Zooming Flyers and Gliding Flying Monstrous Creatures? (p13)

A: Only Snap Shots can hit Zooming Flyers and Gliding Flying Monstrous Creatures. Therefore, any attacks that use blast markers, templates, create a line of/area of effect or otherwise don’t roll to hit cannot target them. This includes weapons such as the Necron Doom Scythe’s death ray or the Deathstrike missile of the Imperial Guard, and psychic powers that follow the rule for maelstroms, beams, and

novas.

1500 Point Hybrid IG List

I've been on a spending and painting spree as of late trying to get my 1500point army 6th Edition ready. This list is part throwback and part new-hotness. The throwback is the reliance on MSU shooty infantry squads. They were the mainstay of 3rd edition IG armies, and they are even better and cheaper now with the changes to rapid fire and heavy weapons with snapfire. The new-hotness is, of course, Vendettas and Demo-Charges

Arborian 1st Light Infantry Regiment

• Company Command Squad: x4 Plasma Guns
• No Special Character: straken is just too expensive and this list really isn't built to assault.
• 4 Plasma Guns in the hands of veterans is going to be just sweet, especially with the BID! order to re-roll those pesky "1"s
• Marbo
• Come from nowhere and blows up anything that isn't T5+. And he doesn't risk blowing himself up if you deploy him on a building and throw that demo charge at a different level. 
• Platoon Command Squad: x4 Flamers or x4 Grenade Launchers (haven't decided yet)
• Flamers for counter-assault and anti-horde. I'd make these Plasma if I had the points.
• 4x Infantry Squads: 1x Plasma Gun, 1x Autocannon
• 4 scoring units. Expendable. Versatile. These guys can help out the Demolishers by providing some defense against assault and Melta as well. 
• Veteran Squad: 3x Plasma Gun, 1x Autocannon
• I needed a 2nd troop choice, and vets are cheap and easy. They bring 3 BS4 Plasmas to the table. 
• 2x Special Weapons Squads: 2x Flamer, 1x Demo Charge
• These guys get loaded up in Vendettas and deploy via Grav Chute Insertion wherever I need them, ideally on top of some Terminators or enemy squads in cover. Plus they can score objectives. If the Vendetta gets shot down, its only a 65 point squad lost. 

Imperial Navy: 5331st Air Assault Wing

• 2x Vendetta Gunships: 2x Heavy Bolters
• Vehicle Killers and probably the best flyer in the 40k game at this point. Also, not bad for taking out other Flyers. These babies do it all, and even drop off Special Weapons Squad

Katalyptic 27th Armored Regiment

• 2x Demolisher: 3x Heavy Bolters, Heavy Stubber, Dozer Blade
• Infantry Support Tanks. Their job is to kill Paladins and Nob Bikers. Anything with a T5 2+ Multi wound stat-line. Think of them as my Luke Skywalker to all those Internet Death Star lists floating around out there. 

1500pts: 1st Arborian Rangers Vs. Thousand Sons

Turn 1: Infantry Squad Seizes Statue Objective

This week, Brandon (Head of GMM Studios) fought a 1500 point battle at his office. We fought on urban terrain and had a great time. This was my second 6th Edition game, and the first one which was played to completion. I brought a three Vendetta list, one full infantry platoon (55 troops plus a Lascannon HWS), Harker's Veteran Squad, Straken's as my Warlord, a Lord Commissar, and Marbo.

Turn 2: Valkryies arrive, Marbo arrives and misses with Demo Charge

Turn 3: Platoon Command Squad deploys via grav-chute insertion;
fails to kill  any traitors with  Heavy Flamer & Flamer. 

Turn 3: Forces converge on the central objective. 

Turn 3: Epic Battle between Marbo and Sorcerer continues.
Marbo won and then got wiped out by Terminators.

Turn 4: Marbo gets wiped out by Terminators :)

Turn 6: Last Charge of Col. Straken

End result was two objectives (one barely ;)) in the hands of the Thousand Sons, and one objective in the hands of the Arborian 1st. A loss, but a well fought one which could have easily gone either way with a few different rolls of the dice.

Impressions of 6th Edition:
-Massed Psykers are a credible defense against Flyers. I lost all three during the battle. I did put two of them in Hover mode in order to deliver mass firepower on to the Terminator squads, which did the pilots no favors. Also, I forgot to take Deny the Witch rolls when my Vendettas were targeted.

-It took over three hours to play a 1500 point game :/. Of course, we were looking up rules frequently.

-Move & Shoot games are so much more fun than any previous edition of 40k: Rapid Fire, Overwatch, and Snapshot make the game so much better.

Overall Tactics:
-I should have kept my infantry all on foot, instead of keeping 25 of them in reserve aboard the Vendettas. One Vendetta got taken out before the troops had a chance to deploy, the Platoon Command Squad miffed their one chance at glory by failing to kill a small Thousand Son squad, leaving only one Infantry Squad to hold the central objective.

-Vendettas should NEVER get placed into Hover Mode. They will die. /endstorybro

Straken in 6th Edition

Ever since the 5th edition IG Codex was released, Straken has been my favorite HQ choice. He leads from the front lines, transforming all guardsmen within 12" into powerful (for the IG) and resilient assault units. Now with 6th, Straken's role must be reassessed because of the changes to shooting, assault, and his USRs.

Fearless: HUGE bonus to Straken and his combat squad. No longer does he get the shaft for being fearless and taking wounds for being outnumbered.

Furious Charge: Let's get one thing straight: the nerf to Furious Charge hurt Imperial Guard foot lists quite a bit. There is a massive difference between striking simultaneously with Marines, and going after marines have had their way with you. Sure, the +1 to Strength is fantastic, but it does no good if your models die before they strike.

However, most casualties caused by power weapon blobs were, of course, caused by power weapon armed sergeants and commissars. The Look Out Sir rule makes these models highly survivable, so the hit to initiative might not be as bad as it seems.

Counter Attack: Counter Attack actually got much better with 6th Edition. Because of the Overwatch rule, you almost WANT assault units to charge your squads, because you get another round of BS 1 shooting in. Because your lasguns have Rapid Fired for at least another round (remember, move and shoot 24" now), you've already thrown a lot more S3 attacks at inbound assault units than in 5th edition. With Counter Attack, you get MORE S3 attacks. By my math, the best case scenario is that, compared to the 5th, an average guardsmen can throw 3 more S3 attacks before he inevitably sacrifices his life for the Emperor.

My suggestion would be to partner Straken with a Lord Commissar. Because Straken is Fearless, you don't have to worry about Summary Execution, and you can test on LD 10 within 6" for Counter Attack.

Challenges: Challenges add interesting options for allowing a guard commander to sacrifice a Sergeant to, say, a solo demon prince or hive tyrant, and still only lose combat by 1, which can be negated with a platoon or regimental standard. Unfortunately, challenges will make Power Weapon armed Sergeants less appealing, because frequently they will be singled out and be killed before they can strike :( Straken himself, though, can be a BOSS when it comes to challenges. S7 Ignores Armor Saves gonna give most characters out there pause.

BLOB or MSU Platoons: I hate to say it, but the IG BLOB has probably seen its last deployment with me. The Focus Fire rule, changes to Rapid Fire (specifically Rapid firing bolters), wound allocation, and challenges just makes BLOBs a less appealing choice than the redundancy of MSU squads. Straken still benefits MSU infantry squads, because you can gain the benefit of Furious Charge whenever a 10 man squad charges, instead of just the turn your 30 or 40 man blob charges. Because of the utility of the Plasma Gun, it will gain a dominant presence in 10 man infantry squads. The jury is still out on Power Weapon Sergeants.
----------
A few points from Boxer Saint from Any Given Codex.

IGNORES ARMOR: Straken doesn't use one of the new fancy AP3 'power weapons.' His attacks "ignore armor saves", making him a relatively rare commodity. He still won't be smashing thunder hammer/storm shield terminators to death, but he'll strike fear into terminators without stormshields. Straken users will definitely want to leverage this point.

LOOKOUT SIR: Straken's Look out Sir is on a 4+ since he isn't an independent character, so we'll need to be careful how we place him. Bodyguards make his Look out Sir automatic, if it is allocated to them, so bodyguards are still useful.

CHALLENGES: Bodyguards, Astropaths, Officers of the Fleet, and Straken himself, are all characters. So if there is a baddy that you don't quite want Straken to face, issue a challenge with your Officer of the Fleet instead(who himself went from being a possible liability, to being pretty nifty with the new reserve rules).

FEARLESS: A quick note to fearless, you can't go to ground if you are fearless, so that could hurt your survivability some. (Maybe you couldn't do it in 5th either, so I may be a cheater).

---------------

Conclusion: Straken is still the BOSS. He is still a viable choice to lead your IG foot army. Instead of sitting back and giving PW BLOBs Furious charge like he did in 5th, now he can lead an army of small fireteams, each with Counter Attack and Furious Charge. Let the enemy hit one of your squads to fix them, then charge with Straken in you turn and swamp them with bodies and S7 attacks.

The Death of Camo Cloaks

A review of 6th Edition Imperial Guard FAQs:


Good Call, GW!

First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire: Adds another shot for lasguns. So now you can move your infantry squad (or blob) 6", FRF, SRF, and shoot 2 shots @ 24" with all your lasguns. #winning

Auras (Straken, etc): Don't work on allies. Thank you. Gets rid of a lot of bitching from the tournament community.

Hydra: Skyfire, ignores Jink. Logical and works as intended. Nerfing of Hydra to only hit ground targets on 6s (see post by Natfka here) is confusing. Probably an error to grant to ability to ignore the Jink but only hit jetbikes and skimmers on 6s.

Valkyrie/Vendetta: Skimmer (Hover). Logical and works as intended.

WTF, GW?

Camo Cloaks now apparently stack with Stealth. The codex language replaced by the FAQ gave models with Camo Cloaks the Stealth USR. Now, camo cloaks no longer confer stealth, just give a +1 modifier to units with Stealth. This amounts to a nerf because of the changes to the Stealth USR: in 6th edition, the Stealth USR adds +1 to any cover save, and grants a 6+ save when in the open.

Obviously GW was afraid of how OP guard veteran and company command squads would be with a 6+ cover save in the open. Wha wha whaaaaaaa.

I may be taking this a little personal, because my ideal army is one of light infantry that would somehow get the Stealth, Move Through Cover, and Infiltrate (any maybe even Accute Senses now that it has changed) USRs, like the old 3rd Edition Guant's Ghosts list. Anything that nerfs camo-cloaks is like a knife-in-the-back from GW.

Missile Launchers? Where the fuck are my Flakk Missiles? So why don't all Missile Launchers (SM, Eldar, IG, etc) get Flakk missiles as standard? I assume they don't, because of the relevant language in the rulebook.

Indianapolis & Bungled GW Orders

Over the last 24 hours, I received two pieces of news, one happy and one not-so-happy:

First, the good news: I'm moving to Indianapolis

I'll officially be moving to Indianapolis in a little over a month. I already work there, and will be looking forward to living in this great city, host to GenCon and other great gaming events. If any of my readers are in the Indianapolis area and want to get together for a game. My only requirements are that you 1) Are not a douchebag 2) Shower at least once a day and 3) do not bring Space Marines (or any derivatives) or Grey Knights.

Now the bad news: GW’s Bungles Advanced Gamer & Collectors Edition Orders

Apparently GW has decided that its brick-and-mortar retailers, and their customers, now are going to play second-fiddle to their own online store. I recently placed an order with my local game store (http://www.3sdgames.com/) for the Gamer’s Edition. Apparently GW relayed to their distributors, the “trade account managers” that they would be unable to guarantee availability of 40kV6 Collectors or Gamers Editions. This information failed to be passed down from the trade account managers to the retailers themselves, and subsequently to customers (such as this blogger). Long story short: customers who relied on their brick-and-mortar stores to get Collectors and Gamers editions of 6th Edition of 40k got the shaft. So if anyone has an extra 6th Edition Gamer's Edition Man-Purse, please let me know.

6th Edition: The IG Light Infantry Platoon Part 1

Thanks to Natfka for a great post on the actual changes on the rules from 5th to 6th Edition: Rules From The Rulebook Are Here: Hull Pts, Focus Fire, Assaults, No Psychic Phase and More.

In this post I've attempted to relay my thoughts on how the changes will effect Light Infantry Imperial Guard platoons.

Rule change: Rapid Fire: "Rapid Fire weapons can now fire [I'm assuming one shot] at target 24" away irregardless of moving or not. (or choose to fire twice at target 12" away)

Analysis: Increases the effective range and (rate of fire) for standard line-infantry. This is both a boon and a curse to the Imperial Guard, especially light infantry armies. The advantage of move-and-fire lasguns means that your infantry hordes (MSU or BLOB) can move 6" and fire 24", increasing the effective range of the lasgun from 18" in all previous editions to 30". How this all works with the FRF-SRF order remains to be seen. Ideally we'd be able to get 1 more shot @ 24" even if the squad moved.

As a disadvantage, nearly every other army (MEQ TAU especially, etc) now has greater effective range with THEIR basic infantry, most of which possess the deadly AP 5 characteristic.


With the rapid fire rules changes, the plasma gun becomes a much more attractive option for MSU infantry squads. The main reason I advocated the grenade launcher was the effective range of 30". Now, with the changes to Rapid Fire, the plasma gun has a leg-up over the grenade launcher, with S7 vs S6, a much higher AP score, better anti-vehicle results (AP 2 weapons have a +1 bonus on the vehicle damage chart in 6th edition), and a higher rate-of-fire.

On BLOBS: With the rumored demise of Killpoints, MSU guard armies will be more compeditive in 6th Edition. This is because a guard player can sequentially split fire offensively and force opponents to waste firepower on depleted squads defensively. Of course, by taking MSU infantry squads you open yourself up to morale issues and less-efficient orders. BLOB strengths in 5th Edition were that with one officer, you could give multiple squads of guardsmen FRF-SRF and Ld 9 Stubborn with a Commissar, not to mention the reduced killpoints compared to MSU infantry squads. My prediction: more foot guard players going run to MSU platoons, and relying on IC Lord Commissars and Warlords for Morale purposes. Straken remains competitive without blobs, because he can FURIOUS CHARGE all MSU infantry units in his radius, and CREEEEEEEED! becomes a marginally more attractive option (however, his orders should still be directed at HWTs with Autocannons as a priority).

Rule Change: Overwatch: "Unit can elect to "Overwatch" if being assaulted. Simply a "Stand and Shoot 40K version" - resolved at BS1, Template does D3 hit instead."

Analysis: Another (marginal) boost for MSU infantry squads. Combined with the rapid fire changes (which essentially gives an infantry squad another turn of lasgun fire per game before being eliminated), FRF-SRF, we get a THIRD shooting phase (all-be it at BS 1). Not entirely reliable, but remember that MSU infantry squads are expendable. Note that plasma guns can be fired in Overwatch. I'm not sure if grenade launchers can or cannot be used in Overwatch if firing in frag Blast mode.

Rule Change: Snap Fire: 
"'Snap Fire' allows certain weapon types to shoot even if moving, but with a BS of 1 (ie. 6 to hit)"
"Blast Weapons cannot "snap fire"
"Vehicles movement and weapons. Defensive and Primary Weapons are gone. You can fire all of your weapons at most of the time. But moving faster will result in less weapon fired at basic BS, the rest will be fired at BS1 (Snap Fire)"

Analysis: Now, contrary to what the latest White Dwarf said about the coolest change for Imperial Guard was move-and-shoot lascannons in infantry squads, the actual best part of this is that HB Sponsons and Heavy Stubbers are going to be making a comeback in my armies. But that is for another post. Infantry Squads should be advancing, rapid firing their lasguns and plasma guns, and wasting 25 points on a lascannon which only hits 16.667% of the time is a poor strategic decision. Yeah its cool, but overall I think it will have little effect on army selection.

Just to summarize Snap Fire and Overwatch: these rules are nice, but not something to base your strategy on. BS 1  is just too unreliable to get too excited about.

Gamers' Edition Satchel: Man Purse?

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting this edition, but I cannot decide if the satchel is a man-purse, or if it will legitimately inspire courage in my models and better results from my dice.

6th Edition Cometh

So 6th Edition of 40k is right around the corner. I, for one, am excited about the changes and challenges that this new edition will bring to 40k. As I get a chance to review rumors and test upcoming changes (got a game scheduled at  http://www.3sdgames.com/ in Ellettsville, IN on the 29th) I'll have more analysis and deep thoughts, specifically how the new edition will change my Imperial Guard and Traitor armies.

Apparently tomorrow the White Dwarf listing many of the rules changes is coming out. I'll be picking it up and posting my thoughts. Hopefully I can attract the ire and hate of the blog world in my direction.