The following come from the Warhammer-community page.
In Warhammer 40,000, a unit’s rules can be found on its datasheet.
Currently, a lot of these rules will reference universal special rules, and you might need to do some digging to find a specific rule in the main rulebook – or just be really good at memorising a lot of rules.
Not for the new Warhammer 40,000 – universal special rules are out, and all the rules for a unit will appear on its datasheet. No more lugging a demi-library of books to every game night to ensure you have all the rules you need. Even the rules for weapons will be on there for the most common weapons the unit is likely to be equipped with. The best way to show you is with an example. We’ll be using the Rubric Marines Datasheet, as requested by Marco Tonino on our Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page.
Ok, lots going on in there, so let’s look at a few elements.
At the very top left, we have the Troop icon, which represents the unit’s battlefield role. In this instance, they are a Troops unit for a Thousand Sons force, though they can also be used as an Elite unit, in a wider Chaos Space Marines force (maybe belonging to a Sorcerer pledged to the Black Legion or a renegade warlord).
Next to that, we have Power Level, which we’ll look at in detail tomorrow, but for the moment, suffice to say that it is a quick and easy mechanism for balancing in less competitive narrative or open play games.
Then we have the unit profile. You can see the Rubric Marine is, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite similar to the Tactical Marine we’ve seen already. These guys are a little slower than their non-dust brothers, whereas the Sorcerer leading the unit is faster and a more deadly close combat fighter with his extra attack.
Wargear options are listed next, along with stats for their weapons. Most units have all their weapons on their datasheet, though some with a lot of options (Space Marine Tactical Squads, for example) will list only the most common.
Next we have Abilities. Universal special rules are out, so any time a unit acts differently to what its stats might indicate, the rules for how will be in here. The bulk of these rules will be written in full, but there might occasionally be an army-wide or very common rule for a given faction that isn’t (like the Death to the False Emperor rule you can see above). These will always be in that same publication, though, to make finding it easy.
After the special abilities and psychic powers are the keywords. There are two types of these.
The first, faction keywords, are what you use when selecting your detachments for a Battle-forged army, and often trigger in-game effects regarding what units gain benefits from certain Characters or can travel in specific Transports.
Other keywords are not involved in selecting an army, and usually have more general battlefield effects – for example, perhaps only Infantry can gain the full benefit of certain types of cover.
So, there are Datasheets and some juicy new Thousand Sons rules to speculate about.
We’ll be back tomorrow to look at points and power levels.
What do you all think?
Rubrics are going to have a 2+ against Damage 1, meaning they’re going to be all but invincible to small arms fire. Nice and fluffy.
Warp Flamers are going to be absolutely *devastating* if they get into range. A unit of D6 auto hit Rend-2 weapons? Utterly terrifying. And the pistol can fire when locked in combat.
They do indeed, put the hammer down as they should.
Wow, rubric marines look nasty! Excited for the power swords buff, great news for all my grey knight models. Excited to see how the rest of the units come out seem like they are changing individual rules pretty significantly.
Yeah, pretty awesome, right?
Inferring from the information presented I am expecting str to not modify armor saves in combat.
Otherwise I can’t ever see choosing a sword over an axe.
No need to confirm or deny. I can wait.
Wait – why? I think it actually makes sense now to include an occasional power sword for the extra rend, especially given the many abilities and effects which increase a model’s save value. Especially for assaulty units which can take multiple power weapons (i.e. terminators), a mix of axes and swords would be great.
Unless something else has changed about wounding they haven’t already told us – the axe is always better than the sword if the bonus strength takes your wound chance from 5+ to 4+.
And it’s better than the sword if it’s taking your wound from 4+ to 3+, except when the armor save is 2+ or better.
But obviously if that extra strength is not giving you a breakpoint in wounding you’re always going to be better of using the sword.
If there is no strength modifiying armor saves then the powersword has a place.
If there is then why bother getting the better rend if I can get that & better wounding.
Thus I suspect strength alone will not affect the rend value.
Well yeah, I’m assuming strength doesn’t modify based on the deep negative armor save modifiers on so many weapons. If S doesn’t modify rend (and it really doesn’t look like it would or there will be few armor saves), then the power sword is a better option against T3, T6, and T7, axe is better at T4, T5, and T8. The power sword will be great for getting wounds in T6 and T7 MCs with 2+,3+, and 4+ armor saves.
You’re telling me a single lucky force sword wound isn’t allowed to suck my Greater Daemon off the map?
About time.
Tyranids especially, do not mind that hapenning, haha.
Rubrics look appropriately scary, particularly assuming that there’ll be a Tzeentch psychic power list the aspirings will be able to take powers from (even if they can’t the reduced smite is still good).
Nice to see the different power weapons all being useful in their own way while still generally useful against any target, having a mix will actually be viable, and maybe that Terminator squad leader with his sword will have a point (I’m guessing power fists will have great stats but maybe -1 to hit).
I’m guessing that the fact they’re force weapons is conferring the d3 damage, if so hide yo characters/monsters/tanks the Grey Knights are a comin’ 😛
I’m kind of hoping that the Dreadknight Force weapons are going to be Damage 3 or Damage d6. Needs to be something appropriate to be not only a Force weapon, but a frigging BIG one.
That sounds about right to me. I could see Hammerhand or something like it giving them a set 3 damage with their weapons instead of d3, there’s similar things to that in AoS for a unit fighting its ‘nemesis’ (see what I did there)
I’m interested in the tidbit dropped about army construction. Rubric Marines are troops in one and elites in another. Considering there is one book that covers all heretics, I’m interested to see how that looks specifically.
Could be like in AoS where certain units can fill your required ‘troop’ choices if you are exclusively a sub faction, so Rubrics are elites in a Chaos army but if everything has Keyword Tzeentch they’re troops (as well as unlocking their faction specific army rules, artefacts, spells etc.)
That’s not really a new thing. Alpha Legion, for example, can currently take Chosen as a Troops choice, Death Guard can take Plague Marines, etc. Looks like they’re going to keep that system. Perhaps because people have already constructed armies that way.
Keywords! That was the part I was most excited about. Happy to see them break it down into 2 subcategories for the purposes of rules and army organization.
Looks fantastic! I really like the rules listed here. All Is Dust is phenomenal, and sounds like it feels right – they’re tough against bullets, but some things still just kill them fast. I assume that a 1+ save still fails on a roll of 1, right? These guys will have a 1+ save against many weapons when in cover, and that’s cool as all beans!
I have to ask why they decided to list Smite here with a long paragraph of how it’s weaker rather than just a different power (Minor Smite). I guess they really want “Smite” to be in the core rulebook, but it just strikes me that it’ll have the same problem that daemonology had – every psyker had access to daemonology, and then they’d release something that says Sanctic, but everyone had to always go through it asking “but do they get Malefic?” with the answer being “yes, they do”. Just feels a little backwards considering all the talk.
That said, I LOVE how they have a weaker smite! Makes a ton of sense for these sergeant-level psykers. I’m guessing that for Narrative Play this is all they have, but in Match Play they get access to their faction’s powers? Curious to see if those will be point-buy or not, but I know you can’t tell me there.
And again, loving the changes to many things. Swords are cool, and their absence was felt in 7th. Having swords be the highest AP with no strength bonus sounds great. But I worry that the Axe now will be far less seen as they’re the “middle” weapon. Did you find that to be the case in testing, or were Axes far more common than I’m imagining them being?
There’s no way they’re going to get rid of the “rule of 1.” You can increase your dice roll by +50 with modifiers but a natural 1 is still always going to be a wound.
A roll of 1 still fails you in AOS
I think it’ll be easier to keep track of and reference if you have a base smite power then say for certain models it does X and Y instead, much clearer than having a load of different core powers for me at least, but I suppose it’s just preference really 🙂
Wow, if power mauls are still an option for power weapon troops and anything like the power staves , my power maul melta spam suicide csm terminators will still be str 6 and now give -1 to armor saves? That is so bad ass, I was just hoping they kept a str buff this edition!
AMAZING!!!!
So does the +1 save from All Is Dust affect Invulns as well? They currently have a 4++, will they continue to have it against Damage 1 weapons? I think that makes sense.
I think you are right, that might give them some defence if they get charged by power swords (if those do just 1 dmg)
I am not sure i can support any game system that makes Rubric marines possibly both useful and fun to play. The wait till 9th begins.
lolol
Suppose no one will really look here anymore but noticed a couple things about this datasheet.
1. No grenades of any type even melta bombs for the sorcerer.
2. No rules that prevent overwatch.