The following comes from the Warhammer-community site.
Lock your safety harness and keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle, folks – today we’re looking at Transports.
Loads of you have been asking on our Warhammer 40,000 facebook page for a few more details on this, so we’ll see what we can do to answer your questions.
Transports have some pretty fundamental changes in the new Warhammer 40,000. Previously, they were a bit of a mixed bag, and while usually quite a good tool to keep your troops alive and get them across the battlefield, a lot of the time, their main purpose ended up being just to soak up the first volley of enemy heavy weapon shots meant for the squad inside.
In the new Warhammer 40,000, Transports are almost universally, better: they are more durable, faster, many are better at shooting, and all have fewer limitations on the units disembarking from them. For example, a unit disembarking from a Transport is no longer prevented from charging that turn.
Units now disembark at the start of the Movement phase, before the Transport moves, but can then move, shoot and fight normally in that turn. This opens up loads of tactical options for both shooting and combat themed armies, especially now that multiple units can share a single Transport up to its capacity.
For a combat army, this will mean you will need to get your Transports where you need them in the previous turn for maximum effect. One tactic we’ve seen used to good effect already is to then use the Transport to charge in alongside the unit into combat!
We’ve seen already that vehicles can charge and fight in melee like all other models, and while they might not be the kings of close combat, they are generally pretty durable and can soak up the firepower of enemy units in overwatch before their potentially more fragile passengers make it in. This is particularly handy with units like Wyches, Ork Boyz and Harlequins, to whom overwatch fire can prove especially deadly.
Here’s an example, of one such Transport: the Harlequin Starweaver.
You can see already that this it is likely to be considerably more durable than it is today, and the skill of the Harlequin pilots even makes it not too shabby in a fight. This being open-topped too, the passengers in it can shoot normally even after that huge 16″ move, and still shoot pistols into units that are in combat with their Transport in their own Shooting phase!
It doesn’t all go Transports’ way though. Being inside an exploding vehicle is still bad news. Models inside a wrecked Transport will now die on the roll of a 1. This isn’t so bad for units like Orks and Guardsmen, who were used to taking a few casualties when losing their Transport, but is going to hurt a bit more for elite units, so be sure to put valuable units in your most durable Transports, like Land Raiders and Battlewagons.
So, lots to take in there – expect a lot of Transports to play a much bigger part in the new edition.
We’ll be back on Monday to kick off the week with some news from Ultramar.
I feel like more pieces of the puzzle are clicking into place. If you assault a unit with your transport and it doesn’t (or can’t) fall back, then it can’t shoot your assault unit or fire overwatch. But then the counter-play is that the unit may just be able to fall back and run the hell away from your transport.
I feel like this alone will really change how assault feels in 8th edition, especially for transport-heavy armies.
Fallback happens during the movement phase of your opponent’s turn. What you want to do is disembark from your transport and charge with it in the same charge phase you’re charging with another unit. That ties up the overwatch and your opponent doesn’t have a chance to fallback yet.
That’s the idea I think, but with disembarking before movement you’ll have to plan ahead which is cool, and another boost to fast units like wychs.
Speaking of which I’m guessing Dark Eldar vehicles (and maybe Orks) will have good combat stats like the Starweaver with those models hanging off them ready to attack!
I’m guessing the rolling for models will work as per the Airships in AoS where you roll a number of d6 equal to the number of models in the transport and then remove a number of models equal to the number of 1s rolled, unit owners choice which models die. Just in case you’re worried about important characters dieing in transports a lot. So don’t have characters riding alone in transports 😛
Does it work that way regardless of how many units are in there? Or does each unit roll by itself? Because that would hurt characters.
I thought it worked regardless of unit but turns out my friend has been playing Kharadrons wrong, ah well
You roll for the amount of models onboard the sky ship and then pick which units and which models take the wounds if any
Actually yeah, re reading it I’m not sure which interpretation is right, it just says roll for each model and then “For each roll of a 1, a model from that model’s unit (your choice) is slain”.
It doesn’t say you have to roll for each unit, just that you choose a unit and a model from it for each 1 rolled.
I’m confused now.
Sorry to say that the characters are units all their own so must be rolled for separately. I lost an admiral that way once.
Oops, my friend’s been playing that wrong, he thought it’s just role and choose from the units embarked.
Actually re reading the rule I’m not sure you do rollfor each unit separately, it just says roll for the number of models and for each 1 a model from that model’s unit (your choice) is slain. Not sure how to read that.
Well you do roll a dice for each model but if a 1 is rolled any model in that model’s unit can be chosen to be slain. Only problem is that characters are a unit of 1 so do not have anyone else to choose.
Maybe, I don’t know if it’s that clear though.
Scratch this, got the AoS rule wrong.
Or maybe I didn’t…
Might need an FAQ that one
Did….did they say units inside fire as normal after the vehicle moves?
Fascinating.
*in no way looking at Burna boyz and hoping*
Disembark before the vehicle moves is a big change.
Can’t wait for more.
I suspect that assault type vehicles will allow you to disembark after moving, I think that’s going to be the Land Raider’s gimmick.
I love the change to models inside dying on a 1. Much cleaner.
I never really relied on transports so I’m not too effected personally, but it makes the game better IMO from what I’m seeing now.
I love the idea of Dark Eldar raiders just mowing stuff down in their fast vehicles. Sounds awesome.
Fully agree, can’t wait to see dark eldar vehicles in action now.
Maybe people inside a destroyed vehicle will die on a 1, 2 or 3 just like they shown that will happen in a collapsing building (in the Stronghold Assault Stratagems). That would be awesome: Great mobility but at a great cost if it fails 😛 But they probably go the AOS way like the Kharadron transport.
Being inside a destroyed Building has usually been more deadly than being inside a wrecked Transport in past Editions, so I wouldn’t expect it to be quite the same.
Overall love all these transport changes depending on how the casualties from the transport dying work. The “suffer a casualty on a roll of 1” is much fairer overall in that it’s a fairly low casualty rate for everyone. Rather than MEQ/TEQ units not caring at all while units like Wyches get torn to shreds.
I don’t like that they don’t get their armor save at all personally. Doesn’t make sense to me that 10 guardsmen have the same chance of surviving the exploding rhino as 10 rubricae
This is the news yet. The transport rules change from 5th to 6th put my berzerkers on the shelf. With this change I know they are coming back!!!
Berzerkers are very, very good in NewHammer. One of the better melee units in the game.
The joy reading that brings me is akin to the singing of The Butcher’s Nails! I cannot wait!
Haha, awesome!
Death Company Reece!
Death Company are stupidly brutal. Changes to the core rules plus changes to the AP system in particular make them just savage combatants.
Don’t be teasing me with Blood Angels stuff, Reecius!
All in good time, my friend 🙂
Will my noise marines disappoint?
I have two twenty man units of berzerkers waiting to be painted for eighth. Which would you paint up first. Chainswords or chainaxes?
Don’t mind me the crimson slaughter fan quietly sacrificing to the dark gods and hoping possessed finally have an edition where they are as scary as space marines infused with daemonic power should be.
Also hpping we retain having our own rules like legions will.
No need to answer.
Huzzah! Today’s been such a great day for me. I get my Nid Faction Focus AND a Harlequin spoiler!?! Insanity! I’m so happy that the Harlequin TRANSPORT is better than most unit’s close combat specialists. It actually makes sense, and the dudes riding around carrying their Zephyrglaives can start really contributing now.
I love how everything’s really playing off each other rules-wise now. Shooting got better, but assault’s got a ton of benefits too. Having vehicles disembark their contents and charge is really surprising and fascinating. Looking forward to all of it!
Glad to see charging from disembark back. And since the transport is likely faster than the unit, it can zoom to guaranteed-charge range to soak up overwatch and tie up the double-charged unit.