Signals from the Frontline #692: 9th ed 40k Coming into Focus!

2 thoughts on “Signals from the Frontline #692: 9th ed 40k Coming into Focus!”

1. I don’t understand the confusion about the terrain. Once you “get it” it’s basically the same thing except:
   1. Infantry, Swarm, Beast are the only things that get cover(light(+1 save vs shooting), heavy(+1 save vs melee), dense(-1 to hit vs shooting) depending on terrain). They all also can scale walls and move through walls
   2. To get cover you stand on/within area terrain or if you are partially covered by an obstacle, that you are within 3″ of.
   3. Infantry can get 5+ overwatch in most terrain or +1 to hit in combat when they are charged.
   4. Runes are infinitely tall and can’t be seen through
   5. Trees/craters now reduce other movement by 2″ and pipes/barricades do that too now.

   That’s pretty much it for changes from 9th.

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2. The main problem I have with 9th is how much worse close combat got for multi-model units.

   Inescapable hugs are super hard to do.
   Almost impossible to hug destroyed transport models.
   Coherency makes charging multiple units a pain with 6+ model chargers and it’s much harder to keep auras. The character targeting rules also makes this harder and buffs shooting by comparison.
   You have to engage everything you charge so no more punching through a screen and killing stuff behind it with fight twice.
   When selecting models that can fight it’s now half an inch of a model that’s within half an inch.
   Vehicles/monsters shoot in combat.
   Charging an infantry unit that’s in almost any terrain allows them to overwatch on 5+(if they spend cp).
   Barricades and pipes got added to the -2 to charge list.
   Hit and wound modifiers limited to 1, which combat units abused the best. (Mostly chaos)
   Can’t chose to use the 0 ap 1 dmg close combat weapon to preserve the opponent’s models.
   Map shrinking actually hurts because the distance between the deployments remains the same. So it just helps 36-48″ guns shoot you better.
   Game going to 5 turns means footslogging for 2 turns is even worse.

   Basically every 8th combat trick is now impossible or is MUCH harder to do. Melee becomes almost a unit trading game.

   I like how terrain changes are actually WORSE for multi-model melee: you can overwatch on 5+ with infantry or get +1 to hit; you can get cover from melee now; more stuff makes you slower….. What the positive for melee in terrain? Dense cover is barely better than normal cover due to new re-rolls (see people switching from alaitoc eldar to always in cover); obscuring helps big monsters 100% but nothing for multi-model units if you’ve played ITC rules. Seriously? Melee edition btw.

   So what’s the list of good things for these models in 9th:
   Engagement range changes. (ITC played the same-ish anyway)
   Morale changes. (a little better but now autopass morale is limited and you can’t re-roll it)
   Overwatch (almost a neutral change. It removed all the irrelevant overwatch, but important overwatch will still happen, and sometimes (infantry in terrain) it’s even stronger than in 8th)

   Neutral changes:
   Heroic intervention. Some armies used defensively some offensively

   So yeah. My playstyle for daemons looks pretty much dead. Hope Necrons and Death Guard will pick up the scraps.

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