The following comes from the Warhammer-community site.
Yesterday, we looked at the biggest models in Warhammer 40,000, and how devastating they can be.
Today, we’re going to look at the little guys.
The new Warhammer 40,000 will give infantry a chance to shine. There is stuff you just can’t do very well with vehicles, bikes and walkers, like hold ruins, use cover effectively and swarm the battlefield in numbers to claim every objective.
One thing that is certainly going to help infantry out is the fact that everything can harm everything in the game. We’ve heard already that characteristics don’t cap at 10 anymore, so the old 10×10 strength vs toughness table was in for an update. In the new edition, there’s a simple but elegant system to find out what you need to wound:
So, you can see that while even the humble lasgun has a chance to take down the biggest foe, you’ll need a lot of small-arms fire to really threaten the big stuff. We’ve already seen the profiles of a Space Marine, a bolter, a lascannon and a Gorkanaut, and now we know all the steps to work out just how such a Shooting phase might go. Some quick maths tells us that we’d need over 500 bolters firing at that Gorkanaut to bring it down, whereas you’d need just over a dozen lascannons. So, while you might occasionally chip the odd wound off with bolters, lasguns or shootas, you might find that your standard infantry guns are better used elsewhere.
Not a problem though, because in the new Warhammer 40,000, models in a squad can fire at different targets. So, this means your Tactical Squad can have your boys with bolters deal with that onrushing Hormagaunt horde, while the flamer bathes a nearby Lictor in prometheum fire, and the squad’s krak missile takes an opportunistic potshot at that onrushing Carnifex – just as you always imagined they should!
Infantry is going to have a lot to offer a cunning general in this edition.
Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at how characters work, join us then.
What do you all think?
Would have preferred that if the toughness was more than twice the strength a six and then a 4+ was needed to wound or something similar, but at least it is not AoS’s set to wound value.
I think it seems like it’s still pretty dang tough to wound something with double your strength. Poor guard lasguns would still take an average of 36 shots to get a single wound on something with double their strength and a save of 3+ (like a dread for example). That’s a lot of fire to get one wound but at least it gives them a chance. If you made it any harder it would effectively be impossible so the mechanic would be pretty lame.
Which is why having split fire for all is so great! Now those lasguns can focus on infantry that they have a decent chance of hurting while the big guns go after big targets.
Giving everyone splitfire and making it so heavy weapons only have a -1 To Hit when on the move? What is GW thinking!?!? It’s like they actually want infantry squads with heavy weapons in them to be a viable unit!
Also I hope this damage chart and the advent of a “damage” statistic on weapons means we’re officially done with double Srength = instant death. Never liked that mechanic…
I’d say it’s 99% certain instant death outside of specific special rules is gone, your reward for twice toughness strength is 2+ to wound now. Agreed, about time that went, multi wound infantry will actually be tough! (Terminators, Tyranid-Warriors, Battlesuits, Sicarians oh my!)
Really interested to see how cover will interact with unit type, I’ve always thought infantry should be able to make better use of cover than bikes and the like who should have to rely on their speed, bikes are just a bit too inherently better now for me, so this is a great sign.
That wound chart is very interesting, going to change things up quite a bit.
Split firing is about time 😛
“Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at how characters work, join us then.”
I see what they did there…
Hooray! The dumbest rule change from 2nd to 3rd is gone! Now each model targets independently! FINALLY!
I was thinking about this and the new to wound rolls means infantry is less susceptible to mid strength weapons. Now T4 models are only wounded on a 3+ from S5 to S7. T3 models from 4 to 5. Makes T4 very desirable.
And flipped the other way, mid strength attacks should now be more useful against High Toughness targets. Take the t8 we’ve been seeing. S5 to S7 has the same chance against it. Depending on ultimate values it could lead to a few sweet spot S and T.
I can see why Heavy Bolters were called out as useful now since they have a decent high rate of firepower and we assume at least a -1 to armor. Vs T4-T9 it wounds the same as S6. As well, they wound T4 the same as S6 or S7. I’m really interested to see how this all plays out.
Yeah, I too am a huge fan of these changes!
More and more, it really does seem like with this edition they’re taking the best of 2nd and AoS to update 3rd-7th.
These are very interesting changes, and they really shake up a lot of the basic unit interactions we have become accustomed to for many years. I really like this, and cannot wait to see it put into practice with the new rules!
I think you will be very pleased with the final product =)
Hot damn it’s a big one today!
Love how people assumed the same wounding chart was staying when so much got changed around it. I know vets will be up in arms, but seriously love the new chart.
Conclusions we can now make: a STR 4 Bolter wounds a T7 Drednought in a 5+!! That’s awesome! And to anyone poopooing that, don’t forget Dreds have a 3+ now.
Split fire makes sense, We’ll see what else comes.
So, wild guess time*Salt needed* Strength 16-20 weapons are coming.
It is so much easier to use and it really helps to even things out a bit.
As someone who regularly plays people new to 40, I cannot tell you how excited I am that the old To-Hit and To-Wound charts are gone, not to mention Vehicle Damage and D weapons. So pumped. Sure, the To-Hit one is simple and quick to learn, but when you’ve got all those others and you’re a newbie, it too is a burden.
And I know highly intelligent people who can outthink the pants off 99% of everyone but for reasons I don’t understand cannot remember the To-Wound chart interactions.
lol, right? The old system was pretty antiquated, this is much simpler.
It’s like when D&D dropped THAC0 from the rule system.
Yeah, I’ve been making that same joke, haha
Everyone has a gauss weapon and a target lock now! The galaxy os a little more necrotaudish.
But thankfully it won’t take 3 glances with gauss to destroy things anymore!
Even moreso than the fact that vehicles can’t get exploded by a single shot anymore, I’m just glad the number of wounds they have makes them so much more powerful against midrange guns.
“Oh you want to bring a vehicle with 3HP and 10-12 armor? Here’s a gauss gun. Or a scatter laser. Or a grav gun. They’re probably just going to wreck you in a single turn.”
The best thing is that the rules may be a bit of proof against future codex designers trying to describe something as awesome. Even if some idiot decides a Tau Railgun needs to be STR 20 and a -4 to armor, it isn’t going to be removing half the models in the game with a single hit.
Also, there is no more magic number with T6 (it was obviously the magic number in 5th and beyond where you couldn’t be insta killed.) I’m curious to see how they re-imagine things like Carnifexes, Hive Tyrants, and the like. Will they go down in toughness and up in wounds, will they go up in both?
Huge question on characters. 40k needs to have weak characters on the board for fluff, and shouldn’t be able to target directly like AoS (we don’t need Lucius becoming T8 with 11 wounds!.) On the other hand, the current system of 11 IC’s joining with 14 wolves and tanking wounds while passing around special rules has to stop…
Strength 5 is the new magic number. With Strength 5 you can expect to wound basically anything you are likely to encounter on 5’s.
That is based on Dreads being T7 and Morkanaunts being T8.
Yep. Looks like the Heavy Bolter is going to own some serious face in 8th.
Little concerned with tyranid Mcs. Lets say they just double a Carnifexes wounds but he keeps T6 and 3+. An 8W T6 creature is half as durable in new hammer then a 4W T6 creature against bolters, and even more weak against a host of other weapons. I just hope T6 is costed appropriately and if they lose durability they make up for it elsewhere – which I think they will. So count me cautiously optimistic.
How do you get that math? If they doubled it’s wounds it would be the exact same durability it currently is. Wounding with a bolter went from a 6+ to a 5+ which doubles the chance to wound. But if wounds are doubled it would have the exact same durability as before… In either case, it would take an average of 108 shots to take it down.
Damn, yeah my math in my head has been crap lately lol. You are right about the bolter. Still some durability loss to other weapons by the looks of it but still not as bad as I thought
You are correct. On the other hand in 7th ed, the Carnifex has massive durability issues. It was hard to make it work because it died so easily.
One would hope it is somewhat more survivable in 8th.
Honestly speaking, if the Carnifex is faster, that will make a huge difference too. But I would suspect a Carnifex will look very similar to a dread (which we have seen the stats on.)
They already said in the large models topic that tyranid monsters will have at least 12 wounds.
That’s not quite what they said. “…the biggest Tyranid monsters now have over a dozen wounds”. So Trygons and Tervigons likely have 12 or more, which is double. Doubt carnifexes and the like get that many. Which is fine as long as points and such are solid.
Yup, everything comes down to points. Take current rules and make Carnifexes 25 pts and they are probably broken.
I think I like these changes. Right now you care about the minor differences in strength and toughness, but outside of that it’s either 2’s or 6’s. This inverts that, making you care about the high and low end, while everything inbetween is 5’s and 3’s.
Since this is saying that models shoot at models, does this mean that a strength of Infantry over Vehicles/Monstrous Creatures is that Infantry have this new “split fire” while the big things have to fire everything at one target? If so, I’m all for that! Infantry need stuff that makes them a better and more “okay at everything” type unit, which is what they’re supposed to be! If not… I’m getting very scared now by how powerful shooting is going to become.
Yeah, not a fan of the new to-wound table. It shouldn’t be as easy for a bolter to put a wound on a Dreadnought than it is for a lasgun to put a wound on a Tactical Marine. At the VERY LEAST, they should have made it so that if a model’s Toughness is more than twice a weapon’s Strength, it’s impossible to cause a wound. That would clamp down a bit on the silly.
Really happy with everyone getting Split Fire on steroids, though. So many really inefficient units will find new life with this (and being able to fire heavy weapons more effectively while moving). Big question: how will sponsons work for vehicles? Will they be able to fire at a different target than the main gun?
To be fair, though, this was probably the most practical solution. They wanted to make “everything hurt everything” because it’s really no fun when someone brings 5 Imp Knights and 75% of your guys can’t even scratch them. And with S/T able to scale infinitely, they can’t really make a 20 x 20 chart with a million different options.
And I think it’s a bit too simplistic of an approach to say “this is dumb because a lasgun can wound a tactical just as easily as a boltgun can wound a dreadnought.” Yes, they both have the same probability of wounding. But you have to account for the fact a MEQ only has 1 wound while a dread has 8. In this new edition the number of wounds you have is even more of an extension of your toughness. It means it’s going to be a lot harder for a boltgun to put a significant dent in a dread than it is for a lasgun to just take one wound off a Marine and kill him outright.
The problem was that would could field an army of nothing but Superheavies in the first place. That fact that some armies couldn’t do much to them was a side effect of that bad design decision.
And you have to remember that dreads will have an injury table too, so that wound they take from the boltgun may end up as damaging – if not more – to it than the lasgun wound will be on the Tactical Squad.
Dreads likely are *not* going to have an injury table.
The injury table for the Morkanaut/Gorkanaut showed that the values that could be changed (attacks, move, WS) were shown as * on the profile with a chart next to the profile.
They’ve already shown the dread profile and none of the stats were marked as *. I highly doubt they would have shown us a profile that was lying and was showing fake stats.
The “injury” table is probably only for the biggest, toughest units where it actually makes sense to make them progressively worse because it takes a lot of work to kill them fully.
While I agree that’s the case for Dreadnaughts, I hope it’s not the case for something like a Leman Russ, Land Raider, or Carnifex though. I really really like the idea of vehicles and Monstrous Creatures getting weaker as they fight.
Did they not say every vehicle would be getting its own table? I remember them saying that somewhere.
I would imagine the Russ/Landraider are getting damage tables. They were just as tough as the Morkanaut was last edition and it got its own damage table.
Carnifex I’m not sure. Someone pointed out to me that in AoS some monstrous creatures like Daemon Princes did *not* get a damage table while others like Greater Daemons do. I’m guessing they have some sort of system where it’s kind of a soft cutoff based on # of wounds a model has. Since it doesn’t make sense if the model only has say 5-8 wounds. But if it has 10+ then it makes more sense.
I’m really happy about this one. Only took them six editions to consider that maybe being forced to fire your lascannon at the same unit as your bolters is rather stupid!
I love the example they gave too, of bolters, flamer, and lascannon firing from one squad at their various ideal targets. This combined with only getting -1 to hit when moving and firing heavy weapons means we aren’t stuck with units of all the same weapon any more, it’s great.
Who knows, maybe you’ll actually see devastator squads like you always see on the boxes.
Especially nice for dark eldar, firing splinter rifles at one target while firing blasters and dark lances at heavier stuff.
I like these rules. I am wondering how nasty this may make Sternguard. We know nothing about Special Ammunition yet, or the points. I am just happy I have not finished the 30 I am painting for my Fists..no weapons done..lol. Have to see.
A friend of mine elsewhere pointed something out.
Its possible that the turn sequence is now different and it could go
Movement/Charge/Shooting/Fight
This would make pistols’ revealed special ability to fire while in melee make even more sense and also cut out a lot of the silly distinctions for some weapons that keep one from assaulting after firing. It also would mean if you failed a charge you could still shoot up the high priority target.
I would hate that as someone who plays assault-based armies.
1) There are a decent number of assault units that have ranged weapons other than pistols. Not being able to shoot them before charging would suck.
2) Now charging a unit makes it immune to the rest of my army. I can’t shoot at it first to soften it up. I have to hope I can take on the entire unit in assault.
3) Wouldn’t be able to charge guys after you destroy their vehicle since the charge comes first.
I doubt it’s going to be that radical of a departure. AoS uses pretty much the same turn order that current 40k does. Though the hero/magic phase is before the movement phase while it’s been confirmed that the psychic phase will continue to be after movement phase by GW.
I’m going to go ahead & assume that tanks can fire every weapon at different targets as well a la 2nd ed.
Calling my shot.
That’s my assumption as well. It would be really weird if they couldn’t.
Guard blobs just got very scary. (assuming they can still blob up)
50 guard in a blob with the following configuration
– 10 flamers
– 4 lascannons
– 4 MLs
– 2 HBs
– 30 lasguns
That squad is extremely terrifying. Up close it throws out 60 STR 3 shots and 10d6 STR 4 flamer hits.
It has a variety of heavy weapons it can use to target different targets.
To make it even better, they no longer have to worry about blast weapons, so can lock up base to base. You can use a movement tray to move them, and the entire block can fit on a 10′ * 9′ base.
If the squad has a way to combat battle shock (Commissar) then it might not lose as many from enemy shooting.
I’m not suggesting that this squad is the end-all-be-all. What I am saying is that I can see it being a nice compliment to a guard army.
The change to STR/Toughness means that even numbers are some critical points. These T values are 6, 8, 10, 12, etc… A unit with a 6 toughness is much tougher than a unit with a 5 toughness. Jumping from a 6 to a 7 is not as big of an increase. Going from a 7 to an 8 is a bigger jump.
For example, if marine Bikes stay at T5, both bolters and lasguns will wound them on a 5+. This is a boost to low STR attacks. It means they are wounded by LCs on a 3+ instead of a 2+. What this means is that Plague Marines are tougher than their Slaanesh counterparts vs bolter and lascannon fire, but are not any better at standing up to massed lasgun fire.
In comparison, a T6 unit would be twice as durable to the lasgun fire as the T5 unit.
Going from a T7 to T8 is the difference from bolters wounding on a 5+ to a 6+. This means that if the Tallos pain engine stays at T7, it’s going to be much weaker vs small arms fire. If a LoC clocks in at T7, and the BT is T8, the BT will be twice as durable to bolters.
Again – even numbers are the breakpoints in this system. Look for them when building your army.
Likewise, there is not as much of a punishment for having a lower toughness. T3 units will no longer be wounded by heavy bolters on a 2+. T4 Marines will now be wounded by Tesla weapons on a 3+. This gives a strong reason to flood the board with 3+ armor save bodies, something we did not see much of in 7th.