Blood Angels Digital Codex Not New

Well, the title of the post says it all. Looks like the Blood Angels Digital Codex is just a copy and paste from the existing 5th edition codex with added 360 galleries. Wahoo!

More after the break.

Blood Angels and Sisters Codexes later this month?

Sorry for the lack of updates. I'm in the last couple months of college so I've been focused on my portfolio and graduating. Anyhoo, I had to crawl out of my hole when I saw Natfka post that a Digital Blood Angels Codex would be releasing later this month.

More after the break.

Warhammer 40K 6th Edition: Rules Dump

Rumor posts aren't really my thing. Granted in our Gaming Club I'm the one that gets all of the dirt on the newest releases, I just don't usually blog about them because of formatting and other people, like Natfka, do a much better job than I could ever do. I know a lot of people are looking for confirmation on a lot of stuff and I have it here in a bulleted format.

This was from a long Q and A Thread on Reddit where Rixitotal borrowed the book from a local store and was kind (brave?) enough to answer questions. I'd say this stuff is 99.9% accurate. There might be some issues with how things were transcribed. Here goes in no particular order:

• Grenades: 1 model per unit can throw a grenade instead of shooting normally. All are Blast except Krak and Haywire. Frag S3 AP -, Plasma S4 AP4, Krak S6 AP4. Haywire works the same, but grenades are thrown instead (ouch!).

• Fearless: Auto pass Leadership. No longer takes additional wounds for losing combat!

• Allies: Battle Brothers can join each others units with Independent Characters and cast psychic powers on each other as if they were friendly. Allies of Convenience can't do any of that (basically act as 2 separate armies). Desperate Allies have to roll at the beginning of each turn if they are with 6". If they roll a 1 they can't do anything. A list of allies is on Games Workshop's website here. Apparently, the matrix that was floating around that was in the Double's Tournament is exactly what's in 6th Edition.

• Feel No Pain: 5+ against everything except for instant death.

• Instant Death: Unchanged.

• Close Combat Weapon AP Values: Power Sword [AP3], Power Axe [AP2, +2 Strength, Strike at Initiative 1], Power Maul [AP4, +2 Strength]. Crozius Arcanum is a Power Maul.

• Hull Points: Basically wounds for tanks. Glance removes 1 Hull Point. Penetrating hit removes 1 Hull Point and rolls on the Vehicle Damage Chart. If a vehicle is reduced to 0 Hull Points it's wrecked like in 5th Edition.

• Vehicle Damage Chart:

1-2 Shaken

3 Stunned

4 Weapon Destroyed

5 Immobilized

6 Explodes!

Modifiers are AP1 +2, AP2 +1, Open Topped +1.

• Direct Hits: Snipers and Characters that roll a 6 to hit can choose what model is wounded.

• Assault: 2D6". Jump Packs reroll the 2D6".

• Assaulting Through Cover: 2D6" drop the highest. Models are Initiative 1. Assault Grenades still work through cover like in 5th. (Hope this is wrong. Makes cover incredibly valuable.)

• Fleet: Can reroll Assault and Run rolls.

• Pre-measuring: Is in.

• Warlord: Model with the highest Leadership in the army gets to roll once on 1 of 3 ability charts. Ability charts are Command, Personal, Strategic.

Command Abilities:

1. Friendly units in 12" get to use your Leadership.

2. Enemy units in 12" use the lowest Leadership in their squad.

3. All friendly units in 12" get Move Through Cover.

4. All friendly units in 12" may reroll Run rolls.

5. All friendly units in 12" reroll 1s to hit when shooting at an enemy within 3" of an objective.

6. All friendly units in 12" add 1 to assault distance. 

Personal Abilities:

1. Warlord and his unit get Counter Attack if in own their deployment zone.

2. Warlord and his unit get Furious Charge if in enemy deployment zone.

3. Warlord and any unit he joins in deployment get Outflank.

4. Get 1 Victory Point for each character killed by you warlord.

5. Your warlord and his unit get Feel No Pain if within 3" of an objective.

6. Your warlord is a scoring unit.

Strategic Abilities:

1. All your units get Move Though Cover and Stealth in ruins.

2. You amy have Night Fighting on the first turn.

3. Your outflanking units gain Acute Senses.

4. While the Warlord is alive you may reroll reserve rolls.

5. While the Warlord is alive your opponent gets -1 on reserve rolls.

6. After both sides have deployed but before scouts you may redeploy 1 unit 3D6", or 3 units D6". May not leave deployment zone.

• Overwatch: Can shoot at incoming chargers at BS1. Template weapons inflict D3 hits. Hits are resolved at the Strength and AP or the weapon. Blast weapons cannot be used during Overwatch.

• Jink: All Skimmers have a 5+ cover save if they moved in the previous turn.

• Vehicles Firing: Same as it was previously, except any weapons you can't shoot normally you can "snap fire" at BS1.

• Template Weapons: Mechanics for shooting same as 5th Edition (i.e. Hit or Scatter 2d6" minus the firer's BS). Any part of A template touching a vehicle resolves hit at full Strength.

• Rage: +2 Attacks. Having to move toward the closest unit is gone. Death Company now get +3 Attacks when Assaulting!

• Bikes: Turboboost in the Shooting phase 12". Jet Bikes 24". Eldar Jet Bikes 36".

• Preferred Enemy: Reroll all to hit and to wound rolls of 1. Works for shooting and close combat.

• Cover: For almost everything including shooting through troops and vehicles 5+. Ruins are 4+.

• Wound Allocation: Closest to furthest. Wargear makes no difference. Characters transfer the wound to the squad. So you do lead from the front!

• Jump Infantry: Gain an auto hit per model at Initiative 10, Strength of the model, AP –. Called Hammer of Wrath.

• Chaos Daemons: Cause Fear! Take Leadership test or strike at WS1.

• Disembark: Can only disembark from a vehicle if it moved 6" or less. Disembark is always 6" (no more 2" disembark move).

• Firing from Vehicles: Can always fire out of a vehicle provided it did not move flat out. If a vehicle moves over 6", unit inside snap fires at BS1.

• Monstrous Creatures: No more 2d6 Armor Penetration. Replaced with Smash Attack which is half Attacks at double Strength.

• Beasts: Move 12", Assault 2d6" and reroll.

• Pile In: Done in order of Initiative.

• Witchblades: Wound on 2+, vs. vehicles Strength 3 + 2d6 for Armor Penetration.

• Fast Vehicles: 6" Fire All, 12" Fire 2 at BS and the rest at BS1, 18" Can't fire.

• Night Fighting: Can't shoot over 36". Over 24" +2 Cover Save. Over 12" Stealth.

• Furious Charge: +1 Strength. Bye bye +1 Initiative. :(

• 40K Authors: Jeremy Vetock, Adam Troke, Matt Ward

Oh, just wanted to plug my favorite local gaming store, Adventure Games. If you are in Northeast Pennsylvania (particularly the Scranton area) they are running a Warhammer 40K midnight release party this Friday, June 29th. The party starts at 10:00 PM and the store will be open until 4:00 AM. We have some fun events planned including a 250 point bring and battle.

Cost to attend is $5 to preorder your copy of the book which you can do over the phone. Info on Adventure Games including address and phone number is available via their Facebook page. Come on down and challenge me and the rest of the DED 'ARD crew to a game of 40K 6th Edition and be the first to play before anyone else!

I'll be the one wearing the "Like A Boss" T-shirt so make sure you stop on over and say, "hi!". Hope to see you there!

–The Harrower

Warhammer 40K 6th Edition Cover Leaked!!!

The cover for the new rulebook leaked earlier today and as I thought, the Dark Angels seem to be the new poster boys for 40K. This is a welcome change as I'm really not a fan of the Ultramarines and Dark Angels players really do deserve it.

There been a lot of rumors and speculation over what the new edition will bring. I'm just hoping for a deeper more tactical game with more options. I think that the more 6th Edition turns the rules on their head the better.

I do apologize for my sporadic updates. I've figured out that my problem with posting is that I'm always trying to do some grandiose post with an amazing conversion or tutorial and my blog will sit for weeks at a time until I figure out what that post is.

I'll be taking a page from Ron Saikowski's book and just posting about what I'm working on and providing brief insight into my methods and techniques. Ron runs From the Warp which is the best hobby blog out there in my opinion, and I need to realize that small nuggets of information on a more consistent basis are better than several solid tutorial posts per year. The release of 6th Edition will be a good time to change things up.

Till next time,
–The Harrower

Necron impressions after a couple games

We went on a road trip this past weekend to New Jersey to pick up the Necrons. I wanted to start small since I haven't finished my Blood Angels yet, and a friend of mine has been waiting for this release for ages so he has models he graciously let's me borrow when playing. I picked up the Codex, a Cryptek, and the Ghost/Doomsday Ark (these names still confuse the heck out of me!).

I put together a quick list at 1,000 points and I got to play a couple games with them over the weekend. Seeing as they are the new hotness and my second army, I thought I'd give a quick run down of my thoughts after my games against Imperial Guard and Grey Knights. Here was my list:

HQ
Necron Overlord w/ Warscythe
Cryptek w/ Abyssal Staff, Veil of Darkness, and Nightmare Shroud

TROOPS

9 Necron Warriors w/ Ghost Ark
9 Necron Warriors
8 Immortals w/ Tesla Carbines

FAST ATTACK

5 Necron Destroyers w/ 2 Heavy Gauss Cannons

3 Canoptek Scarabs

HEAVY SUPPORT

1 Canoptek Spyder

I posted 2 losses. The first game I played against Imperial Guard. The mission was Capture and Control with Pitched Battle deployment. I decisively lost this game because my Immortals with Tesla Carbines couldn't scratch a Valkyrie that was contesting my objective and I couldn't get close enough to contest the other objective. It didn't help that my Necron Overlord hung out in the Ghost Ark all game with a unit of Necron Warriors far from the action. I also forgot that monstrous creatures have Move Through Cover and my Canoptek Spyder moved like 8" in 4 turns and left the Canoptek Scarabs on their own where they got crushed in assault. It's a humbling thing to see an army decimated in assault by Imperial Guard, but that's what happened.

The second game, I played against Grey Knights. The mission was Annihilation with Pitched Battle deployment. This game was a lot closer and I only ended up losing by 1 kill point. My folly in this game was forgetting the mission from the very beginning. I needed to just hunker down and open fire. I spent a couple turns moving my Ghost Ark 12" which meant it and the troops inside couldn't fire. That was 28 shots wasted. I wanted to be in rapid fire range, but that didn't get me anywhere. Next time, stay put! Plus, I got a bit too aggressive when deep striking my Necron Destroyers and they were annihilated by a Purgation Squad with 5 Psycannons and Astral Aim. I didn't do bad, I just couldn't cause enough damage to win.

Here's my observations:

Not So Fast

Going from Blood Angels to Necrons is going to be a steeper learning curve than I thought. I'm used to zooming around the battlefield laying down shots from my Razorbacks, but you don't have that luxury with Necrons. A lot of people are calling the Necrons a mobile army. I disagree. They are quite the opposite as you need to pick your spot and fire away. 

"Did you say nine pens?"

Canoptek Scarabs are INCREDIBLY deadly. Taking a Leman Russ' armor down by 8 points on all facings in 1 turn is crazy. Same goes for a Psyfleman Dreadnought with 5/5/3 armor. There really is nothing cooler than shooting with gauss flayers and all your hits auto penetrate on the damage chart.   

"Killian, I'll be back!"

The Necrons are crazy resilient. Reanimation Protocols works really well as does using the Ghost Ark to add D3 fallen Necron Warriors back to a squad. The ability for Canoptek Spyders to generate additional Canoptek Scarabs is awesome and my opponents were not pleased by how resilient my force was.

Gauss is Boss

Don't underestimate gauss weapons glancing on a 6. I did some serious damage with this. Maybe it was luck, but I was a mech armies nightmare and I wasn't even optimized for that. Of course, against the Grey Knights that didn't mean much with Fortitude, but there is a lot more potential there than most people probably realize.

"Don't get cocky kid!"

Starting fast doesn't guarantee a win. In both games, I started out with a huge lead putting some serious hurt on opposing vehicles by immobilizing them early. By the end of turn 2, it looked like I had both games in the bag, but my lead quickly flitted away. If you aren't careful, a couple assaults can really turn the game around. With this army more than any other I've seen, the tables turn fast.

Changes with 6th Edition

A lot of people said that some stuff with the Necrons won't make sense until 6th Edition. First off, rapid fire sucks. Necrons are a shooting army with primarily rapid fire weapons which means you sit around a lot. Rumor has it that 6th Edition will change rapid fire to the following:

Rapid fire weapons may be fired twice at max range if the shooting unit didn't move that turn, or once at max range/twice at 12" if they moved.  

If that's the case it will be a HUGE boon to Necron armies as it will pretty much double your shots. It also makes a lot more sense why Death Marks have rapid fire sniper rifles.

Necron Destroyers have Preferred Enemy (Everything). Dumb, right? If the rumors are to be believed, in 6th Edition Preferred Enemy will work with shooting attacks. I think there will be some change to Preferred Enemy, but I'm not sure the rumors are right on this one. If they are accurate, I'll be annoyed that they didn't just make the weapons twin-linked instead. I don't want my Necron Destroyers in close combat anyway.

Overall, I think Matt Ward did a great job with the Necrons. I don't see them as overpowered. Sure, there is some nasty stuff in there (Canoptek Scarabs, Death Ray!), but so far so good. It's a cool book with a lot of really interesting choices that should shake up the current 40K meta with it's focus on anti-mech.

Till next time,

The Harrower

Warhammer 40K 6th Edition: Part 2

Last time, I talked about some changes I'd like to see in the next edition of 40K. These aren't rumors or anything like that, this is me flexing my Game Designer muscles and just talking about the current state of 40K and what I'd like to see change in the next edition. In part 2 of this series, I'm going to focus on vehicles and how they factor into gameplay. Here are the changes I would like to see made in no particular order.

1. Mech is too good. In 4th Edition, transports were too weak. In the current edition the pendulum has swung to the other side and mech is king. We got some good stuff with 5th Edition like troops that assault a vehicle use the rear armor value. Also the unified damage chart is much better. I'm not entirely sure what the answer is to this. Is it as simple as a glance is only a -1 on the chart? Eh, that's too crazy.

Maybe we just need additional modifiers on the chart. If a vehicle is Stunned or Immobilized you gain a +1 bonus on the damage chart because the vehicle is basically a sitting duck. I like that a lot better. Of course if you happen to be sitting in an immobilized Rhino and someone hits you with a meltagun at close range you're in for a world of hurt. Vehicles do need to be weaker and there is nothing more annoying than rolling 4 or 5 Shaken results against the same vehicle.

Another issue I have is blowing up transports doesn't usually have much of an affect on the passengers unless they are rocking a poor armor save. I'd like to see Destroyed – Explodes results cause Strength 4 wounds on embarked troops and cause a pinning test like they do today, but they should also be upgraded to rending. This represents the poor SoBs who couldn't get out in time and gives Terminators something to be afraid of if someone pops a Land Raider.

The other thing I would like to see are vehicles scattering when they are blown up. We had this in 4th Edition and I'd like to see it make a comeback. Nothing is weirder than when my Stormraven comes crashing down and it dies on the same spot. I like how Ork Trukks can go flying out of the way, let's do the same thing with all vehicles that asplode.

2. Fix tank shock. The concept of tank shock is really cool. I take my cool bad ass tank and I run over the enemy and crush them beneath my treads. In the game, it's kinda dumb because you can never really kill anyone. There must be a lot of really annoyed tank drivers in the 40K universe.

  "We have Tyranids closing in on us sir," the corporeal reported. "What should we do?"
  "Run them down!" The Chimera kicked up the earth as it sped toward the incoming throng of hormagaunts.
  "By the Golden Throne! Corporeal, how could you possibly miss all of them? They're everywhere!"

The designers probably didn't want people trying to run over infantry the entire game and I understand that, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. With this one, I'm not so sure what the fix is. Maybe everything works like it does today, but tanks also inflict d3 Strength 5 hits against the unit. If the vehicle is fast, it inflicts d6 Strength 4 hits to represent the difficulty of getting out of the way. To avoid abuse, maybe you have to move a set distance that turn or you could only fire defensive weapons at the unit you tank shocked. That makes it a desperation move like it should be.

3. Make embark/disembark a separate action. This is a great point from dzer0 who commented on my first 6th Edition post. I'm really surprised I didn't think of this, because I always struggle with this. How many times do you disembark and you are stuck trying to figure out how to either move your vehicle or your troops because you have to do all of the movement at once?

He had a great idea. Make disembark/embark it's own action. Now I can disembark my troops, move my Razorback out of the way and then move my Assault Squad. Better yet, I can move my troops forward, drive another transport across the battlefield and have my troops hop in during the same phase. I wouldn't have to worry about positioning everything perfectly beforehand. This would also allow for better screening tactics with your transports and give players more flexibility when moving across the battlefield.

4. Rules for flyers. I of course would like to see rules for flyers since they seem to be the rage ever since the Valkyrie was released. Now we have the Stormraven, Razorwing Jetfighter, and the Venom. I think this is a sure bet just like the new edition of the game will still involve the rolling of dice. I wouldn't be surprised if Supersonic wasn't Games Workshop playtesting rules for flyers from the new edition.

That's it for today. I promise, my next post will be about the hobby and I'll either show some new scenery or miniatures I'm working on.

Till then,
–The Harrower

Warhammer 40K 6th Edition: Part 1

I apologize for my hiatus. School and work have been keeping me incredibly busy and I haven't had a lot of time to do anything hobby related. Work has finally slowed down a bit and the harder classes are behind me for now, so I can get back to 40K and focus on the hobby. I just want to thank Farseer Frank for taking up the reins again the past few weeks and sharing his tactical insight. I hate the Eldar with a passion and that's thanks to my poor record against his Eldar in 1 on 1 matches. The best I've managed is a draw, but that will hopefully be something I improve on in the future.

I've been reading a bit about the rumored 6th Edition of everyone's favorite game coming out next year and I just want to point out some things I would like to see in the new edition. All of my ties to GW HQ in Nottingham have been severed years ago and I don't know anyone that works there anymore. That being said, these are not "rumors" or an "insider's look". These are just my thoughts on what I think needs improvement going into a 6th Edition. I'll start with 3 and add to it over the coming weeks. In no particular order.

1. Wound Allocation Rules. The current rules are bollocks. Nothing annoys me more than doubling up power weapon wounds on the same model to reduce casualties. Here's an example: I have an Assault Squad with 4 marines left. 3 of the marines are just standard with bolt pistol and close combat weapon and the 4th marine has a flamer. I get charged by a unit of Khorne Berzerkers. I take 2 power weapon wounds and 6 regular wounds. I allocate the 2 power weapon wounds to the poor SoB with the flamer and I roll 6 saves on the remaining 3 marines. This greatly tips the odds in my favor and actually makes it beneficial for the attacker to cause less wounds! Come on Alessio you didn't see this in playtesting?

I hope how they fix this is that allocation works the same way, but you don't do it all at once. You start with any attacks that ignore armor saves and then resolve the rest from highest strength down to lowest. So in the same example from above, 2 of my guys are dead outright. No save. I take the 6 wounds on the remaining 2 troops. That makes sense! This will still allow defenders to avoid taking saves on characters and certain models, but won't result in lost wounds because you decide to put 2 of those power weapon hits on the guy carrying the flamer. Not only that, it will speed things up. Nothing is worse than having a squad with a lot of different wargear and trying to figure out who is saving for what and new players have a VERY hard time with this.

2. Kill Points. I'm REALLY not a fan of Kill Points. In a game where you use equal points on both sides, I don't like that one army can give up a lot more than the other. For starters, Victory Points work a lot better. I kill a 400 point unit I get 400 points. Gee, that makes a lot of sense. I've been in games where my opponent has basically nothing left and I still lose by 1 or 2 Kill Points. And it's not like this is good for list building. It's stupid to build a list around how many points you are going to give up as that has nothing to do with the fluff of the game.

Can you see Dante talking to one of his Captains, "I don't know Tycho. Let's leave all of the tanks behind. Let's just use Jump Packs so our army is less vulnerable." Dumb. What I would like to see is something similar to Victory Points, but round the numbers to the nearest hundred. If I have a unit of Death Company that costs 250 points, they're worth 3 Kill Points. If you want some variety in there, make specific Org choices add to it. HQs are worth an additional 3 Kill Points. Elites are worth an additional 2 Kill Points. Troops, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support are worth an additional 1 Kill Point. That makes a lot more sense. I should get more points for taking out my opponents more powerful troops and his leaders.

Also, you should get points for units that are at half strength or immobilized. As is, Kill Points force you to make tactical decisions that don't make a lot of sense.

"Tycho, fire on that immobilized Rhino!"

Tycho responds incredulously, "Um, what!?"

"We have a better chance of destroying that then we do that unit of Plague Marines. That's an order marine!"

There will always be a way to game the system, but Kill Points can be done in a way that makes a lot more sense and isn't as lopsided.

3. More Missions. The current crop of missions is a joke. 3 missions with 3 different types of deployment? That gives us the huge variety of 9 different game types which as everyone who has been playing 40K for a few weeks knows isn't much. I miss the old days when you bought a new Codex and you got a mission to go along with it. Or what about the cool mission cards from 2nd Edition? When you had no clue what your opponent was trying to do and the game was more exciting.

I do think Battle Missions was a step in the right direction and I hope both it and Planet Strike are mined for ideas when they come around to creating missions. I do like the Stratagem System and I hope to see that in 40K proper. I'd like to see more variety. You can add the dynamic of Attacker vs. Defender or change the Force Organization Chart depending on the mission. The good news is that the new version of Warhammer Fantasy Battle has a bunch of missions. Hopefully we'll get that in the next iteration of Warhammer 40K.

So what do you guys not like about the current edition? What would you like to see changed? Post your thoughts below. Next time I'll talk a bit more about what I'd like to see in 6th Edition and I'll let you know what I've been working on.

Till then,
–The Harrower