October is almost here, but we have one last important task to perform in this waning month before we allow it to rest up for another year. That’s right – it’s time for the Warhammer 40,000 September Rules Update!
This article was originally published on the Warhammer-community site.
The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in really good shape, so whether you favour using finely honed tournament lists or thematic, narrative-driven armies, you needn’t fear any seismic changes to the game. In addition to formalising many of the tweaks made to the various Adeptus Astartes publications in the recent update, which coincided with the launch of Codex: Space Marines, there are just a handful of minor clarifications to a number of publications in response to your feedback.
Here’s rules guru Robin Cruddace to tell us more about what you’ll find in the September Update…
Robin: At the time of writing this update, I have recently returned from the NOVA Open convention where I had the opportunity to chat face to face with a huge number of Warhammer 40,000 hobbyists. I was humbled and overwhelmed by how excited and enthusiastic hobbyists are with the state of Warhammer 40,000, with recent codex releases – including the latest edition of Codex: Space Marines (and its many supplements) – and the announcement of the upcoming Psychic Awakening.
We have also had major online updates to the Forge World range of Imperial and Chaos Knights, and Adeptus Custodes models, the datasheets for which have been rebalanced and changed according to the feedback and comments you have sent to us. I have said it before, but your feedback is crucial if we are to keep our rules as up to date and clear as possible – so thank you to everyone who took the time to speak with me and to everyone else who filled in one of our surveys or emailed our FAQ inbox.
FAQs and Errata Updates
As with previous updates, the first thing we have done is to update all of our existing FAQ and Errata documents to take account of any new questions that have been asked since April (if you submitted a question, make sure you check out the Errata and FAQ document for your army’s codex). There are no major changes to any of the core Warhammer 40,000 rules, only some clarifications, such as the ordering of opposed dice rolls and re-rolls. You can find these in the updated Warhammer 40,000 FAQ document.
Matched Play Rules
We are not releasing any new beta matched play rules as part of this update, and all of the previously finalised matched play rules continue to apply as they did before – the one exception being that some errata relating to certain Space Marine Stratagems have been removed, as the new codex and codex supplements now replace those rules. The current finalised matched play rules are also reprinted for your convenience.
Balance Updates
We are not introducing any balance changes at this time – all the feedback we have received regarding the relative effectiveness of one unit over another will be incorporated and represented in the next points review, which will be released alongside Chapter Approved 2019 in the near future.
We hope this September update clarifies any queries you might have had, but if not, please send your questions and feedback to 40kFAQ@gwplc.com. Until the next time, may the dice gods smile upon you and may faith be your shield as we venture forth into the Psychic Awakening.
Thanks, Robin! On the topic of Psychic Awakening, we’ll be ramping up our previews of the first book in the series – Phoenix Rising – over the next couple of weeks, so be sure to check back with us regularly for more news. Even better, sign up to our newsletter and we’ll keep you (digitally) posted on all the latest information!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Psychic Focus doesn’t need to be on here since it’s in Chapter Approved, right?
Yeah. Psychic Focus, the updated character targeting, etc.. is all in CA 2018. Hence no longer in the online pdfs.
Savior protocols have been nerfed!
Care to spell out how?
The speed of your answer concerning a possible tau nerf is utterly suspicious XD
lolol
I just realized that there is a Tau nerf. The new protocols now require a wound roll, rather than a successful wound. Previously, GW had ruled that when something automatically happens, such as an automatic hit, there is no ‘roll’ occurring. Consequently, anything that auto-wounds, like infiltrator attacks of an unmodified 6, cannot be passed off to a drone.
My bad, I misunderstood the sequence. It is the same but clarified… False alarm
=)
In contrast to all the others, the Dark Angels FAQ says to change the Type Characteristic of the Demolisher Cannon to Assault 3. Does that sound like a copy/paste error to anyone else?
Yes it sounds incorrect, but send an email to the 40KFAQ address to raise it with them.
Earlier in the evening Ben Bailey on Warhammer Tv was pushing the use of 40 Imperial Fist infiltrators auto-wounding on 6s (and getting a second hit through as well). Now it looks like we have to roll for an additional wound – but it is clumsily written.
Against Death Guard (T5), Chaos Havocs (T5) and vehicles (my other house armies) the former made the SM competitive. Now I’m confused about which Troops choices to take and I’ll have to wait our Codex Supplement in the coming month.
This is incredibly annoying. They did it to break an infinite hit loop caused by a different ability and ended up nerfing the Imperial Fists as collateral.
Imperial Fists will be just fine, trust me, haha.
How do the Black Templars look?
I see they got their own tab in the GW store. 😉
I shouldn’t be that annoyed, it was a technicality that made IF infiltrators maybe too good when paired with the new type of reroll where you can reroll anything. It just also happens to be the case that I read this while painting some yellow infiltrators.