Possible guard rumours

 So, there are have been a few rumours floating around, many of which seems a bit far fetched to me, some of them more reasonable. 

There are quite a few Kreig rumours, with a few of these being quite possible. 

First off there is the rumour of a new plastic Marshal, which does make sense as there is no HQ section for  them at the moment and as one of the newest infantry kits it makes sense. 

Possible scenic base for new Marshal

I can also see Engineers being a possibility as an elite unit along side the Kasrkins and Scions, although this slot is getting very crowded. They are also an old forge world unit, so I think there is a greater possibility of it becoming plastic. 

Another unit that has been rumoured is Pioneers. This is a new unit as far as I can see but it could also be a  the Grenadier squad with hotshot lasguns. That would be 3 hotshot armed units though, which seems a lot. It does make sense as a dual build kit with the engineers. Alternatively, there are actually the same unit, Pioneers in a military sense are engineers, so maybe this is just the old Krieg engineers have been reimagined as Pioneers and are actually the same as the above unit. 

Either way i think we will have a new Krieg kit, most likely a dual kit as well, split between the Engineers and Grenadier type of squads. 

Lastly, we have the rumours for a new siege battery with a heavy mortar and Earthshaker dual kit. I assume that this is a dual kit similar to the new Cadian Field Ordnance battery. The heavy mortar and the earthshaker are iconic Krieg units but the new FOB has a Earthshaker type of unit already and there is the actual Eathshaker unit, so another similar units seems a little more than we need. I feel that we don’t need any more artillery type of units, as we have plenty of options. However, new Krieg artillery will be a big seller. 

Scenic bases for new artillery units

We also have an additional rumour engine picture that we don’t seem to have any info for.

This picture to me and to many others is most likely be a flag from a command squad. Now, we have just had a new Cadian command squad and the Catachan command squad is the newest of the Catachan kits, so I don’t think that we will be getting new kits for either of these. So, I think that we are going to see a Krieg command squad kit, that will include the Marshal as part of it, the same way that the other kits contain an officer model. 

Other rumours that we don’t seem to have any pictures for or limited information are some updated units and some new units. 

The rattling snipers are apparently getting an updated kit, presumably in plastic. I think that it would be nice to get a new plastic kit but mostly as I think that all the metal models should be replaced by now! The main issue is the rules for ratlings are just rubbish and need a major rules overhaul to make them worthwhile actually taking.  

Another updated kit is for the Regimental Advisers and also the Tech-priest Enginseer. This is supposed to be a new combined kit and I suspect, similarly to Ratlings, its to remove the old metal models from the range. The tech-priest is already plastic and fairly new, about 10 years old, so I suspect if it is included in the kit it will just be a reboxing of the current kit. 

Lastly we have a new kit and this is the one that i think is most unlikely, the Elysian Drop Troops. They are supposed to be jump troops with a 12 inch move and come in squads of 5 to 20! I have two issues with this, firstly the jump pack move. I really don’t see a guard unit having a standard 12 inch move, having an auto advance mechanism yes, standard move, no. Secondly the squad size of 5 to 20 really sounds off, it will either be 5 to 10 or 10 to 20. Going 5 to 20 seems very unlikely. In addition, they seem to be armed with standard lasguns and limited special weapons, much like the Catachans. I do like the idea of a jump pack type of unit, however, I think a scion based unit is more likely. 

A couple of things that don’t seem to have been mentioned at all that I would expect to see is an update to the base Catachan units, bringing them inline with the other units in terms of special weapons and also update the terrible sculpts. I would also expect to see the two Catachan characters, Harker and Straken, updated to plastic. These seem like a sensible thing to update with the new codex, keeping th Catachans with only flamers seems silly, as they have had other special weapons in the past. 

The last rumour I wanted to cover here is to do with the Combat Patrol. Currently there is the Astra Militarum box, which I don’t expect to change much moving in to 10th as it’s very new but the rumours are that the new box will be Scion based. Now unless there are new models, such as the jump unit, there is very little to fill the combat patrol box to make it appealing. 

In addition to all the rumours flying around there has also been the announcement of a new Krieg book, Seige of Vraks. The original book came out nearly 20 years ago and was, I believe, the introduction of the Krieg models. So having a second book announced, with a Autumn release date does suggest alongside the rumours that we may well have an Autumn release date for the codex and new models, which if the above rumours are true, are heavily Krieg influenced.

So with all the rumours and also the book release, it look like we may actually get a release this year! I am really looking forward to the new codex, if indeed it does come out towards the end of the year. 

Dante!

 So, despite having a different post lined up for today, I couldn't resist talking about the new Dante! I have to say straight off that I love this model, I think that it is stunning and so much better then the original and every bit the model that Dante should have. 

There are several things about the model that I like and only one that I don't. The main thing I love is how faithful it is to the original. 

New Dante

As you can see from the images above and below, there are so many similarities, from the shape of the axe, to the intricate armour panels of the chest, legs and even the toes! This is great, as I was worried that GW would try and "update" the armour and it would be horrendous.

Old Dante

However they have updated a number of areas, such as the iron halo, which looks so much better, as does the laurels. The addition of the loin cloth and flowing purity seals also look good and really fit with the model and its position as leader of Imperium Nihilus. 

Details

One of the other bits that I'm really excited about is the jump pack. This is the first time that we have seen proper jump packs for primaris intercessor type marines. I am hopeful that this will be the beginning of proper assault intercessors with jump packs. If it is I will be upgrading all of mine and possibly getting more, as my army is all about movement and speed. It was one of the areas I lost when I moved from first born to primaris marines. 

There is only one bit of this model that I don't like and that the tactical rock, or rather mountain that he's leaping from. I do t like this for two reasons, firstly I just feel that it's going to break and will be a paint to repair and secondly it makes him a big target. It's not the end of the world but I might look at shrinking it down a little on mine.

Lastly I really hope that he has rules that allow him to be fielded with any Blood Angels army, successor or original, as I would love to be able to run him as a supreme commander in my Eagle Knights army.

The leak

All this obviously started from the leak that appeared on Facebook the other day, when someone appears to have been sent the model by mistake. I'm not sure what they ordered but if it was me I wouldn't have complained, just ordered another one and kept quiet about the model. I'm looking forward to seeing what is released in the upcoming previews, we know there is likely terminators but I'm hoping for jump pack equipped marines and some.more BA specific units.

Guard leaks - Rogal Dorn

So I've run through all the leaks from the other week, apart from the new Rogal Dorn tank. This is a new heavy tank that sits between the Leman Russ and Baneblade, because what we really need was a new heavy tank, rather than some other fast attack options, such as the Tauros or Centaur.

The tank itself is a bit of a beast, with 17 wounds, t9 and a 2+ save, compared to the LRBT's 13 wounds and t8, although both have the turret special rule. Although this model can be equipped with the armoured tracks upgrade which gives ive you a +1 to your armour save against D1 weapons. I don't know if we will retain Armour of Contempt or not but I think armoured tracks is almost a must have. 

It apparently come with a twin battle cannon, castigator Gatling cannon and a heavy stubbed. It can also take sponsors, either heavy bolters or multimeltas and two additional heavy stubbers or melta guns.

If you want a bit more bang, bang you can switch out the battle cannon for a Oppressor cannon and cohax autocannon and the Gatling cannon for a pulveriser cannon, both of which have lass shots but more strength and ap. 

And you can field all this for a base coat of 250 points (LRBT's are a base 140), more with the sponsons, extra weapons and upgrades to the the main weapons. 

Now I'm not going to go into a side by side comparison of the LRBT and Rogal Dorn (RDBT I guess) but I will take a quick look at the weapons profiles. The default load of twin battle cannons is not quite a double of the LRBT's battle cannon, with 2d6 shots to 1d6+3 and ap-3 to ap-2 respectively, but it is still a good gun, 3specially when backed up by the Gatling cannon with 12 shots at ap-1. You can upgrade the battle cannon to a Oppressor cannon dropping to 1d6+3 shots but gaining 2 strength, -1 ap and 1 more damage. Similarly the Gatling cannon can be upgraded to a pulveriser cannon, which is basically a d6 shot battle cannon. Personally from what I have seen so far, I would either keep it standard or upgrade the Gatling cannon to a pulveriser cannon, slap on some heavy bolters and call it done. If you have extra points then more stubbers would work but the meltaguns really are too short a range for this tank. 

I still don't know if I will get one of these or not. While I think it might be fun to, with 4 LRBT's and a Hellhammer, I just don't have need for any and I would much rather spend my money on the new Field Ordinance Battery. 

Guard leaks - additional information

So having looked over various parts of the codex there are a number of other rules bits that have been leaked as well. These don't fit into any specific area so they are lumped together here. 

Hammer for the emperor stays but possibly has a new name, in addition adds the ability for units to use an officer's leadership if within 6" or 12" with a vox. There still seems to be some debate about whether you retain HotE if you take a regimental doctrine. For some.of the other rules I've seen then I suspect that you will. This could be one of the key choices when constructing your army.

The new Chain of command rules mean you must select an officer to be your warlord if your army includes one, in addition you can only have 1 castellan in each detachment and he must be your warlord. You can also have one of the new Lord Solar units and he must be your Warlord if you do. This is now pretty standard and also goes along with the way guard armies are fielded. 

Command squads are also back and you can now attach people to them like in the old codices. Each squad contains an officer and 4 guardsmen and you can add an officer of fleet, Master of Ordinance or an astropath. All but the officer apparently have just 1 wound. You can also attach an Ogryn body guard which has the “big rule”, this means that if you attach one, and the unit is targeted, you use his toughness etc.

One last bit of information about officers and orders, is that they will still spread out in the same way as they do now.

Other changes mean that Scions are now elites. However if you bring a full Scion detachment they may be taken as troops. There is also something about other keywords being added, but as yet we don't know what these are. There is another way of getting scions as troops and that's by taking  the Lord Solar as your warlord. There is some downsides to taking a pure Scion detachment as well, apparently if you do you loose a lot of the abilities and it makes about a quarter of the codex unusable. I honestly don't know what this means, as if you took scions on their own now, you loose a lot of units as well, so it seems, if you only loose 25% of the codex, you might actually be gaining units your can use. Hopefully it will make more sense when we see the full rules. 

Platoons are back, just in a very different way (not lik in 2nd or 3rd edition). It seems to be a Special Detachment rule, likened to the dark eldar real space raider detachment and there is a new platoon keyword that enables this.

There are a few changes and additions to various units in the new book. The one we all know about is that Cadian shock troops can carry two special weapons but are not allowed to take heavy weapons. It is also rumoured that Catachan can only take flamers. However the rumour states that for every 5 models you can take a flamer. So does this mean that you can take a squad of 5 or that you can take more than 10? Or is it just a wording issue that means you can take up to 2 flamers. DKoK also get an infantry squad, which come.with a plasma and can have up to 2 more special weapons plus a medic for ignoring the first damage a turn. The last bit about squads is that sniper rifles are now Tanith only. This seems a little strange as Tanith only have Gaunts Ghosts and as there doesn't seem to be an option for named regiments, I'm not sure how this will work.

Artillery finally seem to be the death dealing machines they should be as they apparently will dish out mortal wounds for hits. How many mortal wounds is unknown but hopefully it'll be more than 1!

There are a few now models, such as the new Castellan and Lord Solar. The new Lord Solar is apparently a cavalry unit with a move of 12 inches and some rumours have put him as a supreme command detachment model. Most characters have been rolled in to squads but Preachers (I'm guessing Priests) and engineers (techpriests enginseers) are still independent characters and apparently have more wounds.

However, it's not all good news, there are a number of options that have been removed from the codex! To be honest I don't understand why any of them have been removed, all can be built from existing boxsets. 

Conscripts have been removed but there are conflicting rumours about white shields. Some saying that whiteshields are out and others saying they are in. Personally if white shields are in then they will be just a 10 man squad, rather than the 20 to 30 man squads were use to.

Veterans are out as well. I don't understand this at all, they are a viable unit from the current boxsets with just a few rules tweaks. However, I guess with the various options for troops, they are kinds of surplus to requirements. In addition to vets, special weapons squads are also gone. Again this is strange as with a few tweaks you could easily make this squad out of a current box, like the command squads by just dropping a lasgun and restricting weapon options. 

There are also changes to Scion squads and how special weapons work. Currently you can take 4 weapons of any type for a ten man squad but now it looks like you'll only be able to.take a max of two of the same, so no more 4 plasma squads. 

Unfortunately there are also some characters being removed. Some are understandable, such as old man Creed and Kell. Paso has also been removed, which I don't think is a good move but the one that I really think is a mistake is the removal of the old man of Hades hive, Commissar Yarrick. As Ghazghkull got a brand new plastic model, I thought that Yarrick might have got a nice new model too. If he had, it would have sold well.

I'll just leave this here, Rough riders confirmed to be back

Lastly there are a couple of vehicles rules. One piece of good news is that vehicle squadrons are still around, so we still have a little bit of wiggle room on the "rule of 3". Whether all the current squadron options remain is yet to be seen. Lastly we have lost the Grinding Advance rules but gained the Turret Waeapon rule, which applies a +1 to hit to turret weapons and enables turret weapons, including blast, to be fired out of combat. Loosing grinding advance is a shame but having a +1 to hit and the ability to fire out of combat (always a major issue for Leman Russ tanks) is a good substitute.

Guard leaks - orders

 Today we're looking at orders and there have been quite a few changes here. For starters there is a whole new category of orders, commissar orders. This will change quite a bit in regards to orders and the role of officers and commissars. The full extent of this change is yet to be seen but I think we will finally see a proper place for commissars. There has also been a change in how orders are issued, while infantry orders still have a 6 inch range, vehicles orders have a 12 inch range. In addition orders are now issued in the command phase with thee only exception being if an officer disembarks from a transport, then he can issue an order as though it was the command phase.

First up the Regimental Orders

FRFSRF - Heavy 3

The classic and we'll loved Front Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire has changed, mostly for the worst. Rather than doubling shots it changes the weapon to a Heavy 3. So it's now a heavy weapon, resulting in a -1 to hit when moving. This can be mitigated a couple of ways, but this encourages you not to move, in a game where movement is key. 

Take Aim +1 to hit +1 AP

This is a mixed bag. +1 to hit is always useful and with some of the traits, could end up with 2+ bs guardsmen, which sounds nice! The ap1 is less appealing, against any marine army it's useless and against a large number of other armies it won't do much. Against some of the lower armoured enemy it could be useful, such as orks and other guard armies.

Fix Bayonets +1 to hit on Melee +1 AP

This is another mixed bag, the +1 to hit is nice, but the ap1 is not as good. However, with guard melee, it's the wounding that always the hard part as you are only rarely wounding on less than a 5. A +1 to wound would have been a lot better.

Take cover - Get light cover if already in light gain dense.

This works similarly to the old stratagem and while it might be useful it's also very speculative. You have to put this on a unit before you know it's being shot at and so your opponent can simply just switch targets. Might be useful on an objective holding unit but not a great order.

Move Move Move! +2 movement if you chose to advance auto 6 (no roll )

With this I'm assuming that the results are cumulative, meaning either an 8 inch move or 14 inch advance. Not quite as good as the old version but still a good boost to movement when you need to grab an objective or get out of trouble. 

Suppression fire - target infantry unit only. Can only target 1 unit. If 5 or more hits are scored enemy unit subtracts 1 from hit rolls until your next shooting phase.

This could be useful for reducing threats and reducing the effectiveness of an Emmy unit. Possibly not the best order to be using regularly but certainly one to keep in the back pocket for those niche times. 

So the standard orders are as usual a mixed bag. There are some standout orders that I can see being used a lot and a couple that I don't see being used very regularly but none of them are useless or unusable.

Next up we have Tank Orders. As yet I do t know whether they will be restricted to just Leman Russ and the new Rogal Dorn tanks or if they will be any vehicle like they are currently.

Pound them to dust - when using blast weapons double the amount of models on the enemy unit.

I think this will be a pop one for LRBT's, as getting those shots really counts. If they remain a d6 weapon then it will be very easy to guarantee at least 3 shots and not very difficult to get the full 6. When every shot counts, you always need to maximise your shots.

Full Throttle - add 2inch movement. Count as stationary if advanced.

This could be very useful for getting into a good firing position or getting away from the enemy. Counting as stationary after advancing is really nice, as it means you don't have to worry about any penalties for moving.

Gunners kill on sight - reroll 1’s To hit.

I think this is going to be more useful on non-tank models. If you can get this on Chimeras or sentinels then this will be useful. It will also be good on non blast equipped tanks, such as the punisher.

Blitz them!! - add +1 to charge rolls. If a charge is made roll a dice a 4+ inflicts D3 mortal wounds. (Dozer blades add +1 to “hit roll”

This might be useful when charging in a vehicle, however I think that giving it one of the other orders before charging would be far more useful than the possibility of inflicting mortal wounds.

Shock and awe - Gain objective secured

This could be very useful when your trying to snatch an objective or even contest one. This is not going to be used very often but will be very useful when the need arises.

Pinning fire - target infantry unit only. If 5 or more hits are made unit subtracts 2 from movement

This is, in my opinion, the weakest of the tank orders. To get 5 or more hits is quite an ask for most units and so will rarely happen. It might work with Chimeras if the lasgun arrays work the same way but with a battle cannon and bolter combination, guarantying 5 hits is a long shot.

S with the tank orders there are a couple of real stand outs for me and a couple of really weak options, how they fare in the overall scheme of the new codex is still unknown.

The last set of orders we have are described as prefectus or commissar orders. This means that they may well be limited to commissars and possibly Militarum Tempests units.

Forwards, for the Emperor! - When shooting,the unit counts as having Remained Stationary if it made a Normal Move or Advanced

This could be good for making quick moves or using on units with heavy weapons. 

Duty and Honour! - The unit can perform actions even if it Fell Back or Advanced, and shooting does not cause actions to fail.

This is a good order and fills a gap that the guard have been lacking. Being able to shoot and perform an action is very good.

Get Back in the Fight! - The unit can shoot or charge (but not both) in the same turn it Fell Back

This is pretty much the same as the old version and was always a useful tool for the tool box and I can't see that changing. That the order will now have to be done by a commissar actually make more sense than it did before!

At All Costs! - Unit pains Objective Secured (its models each count as 1 extra model if it already has this ability),

This could be useful when your trying to take or hold on to an objective. This is definitely going to have its uses both for objective secured units, really forcing the enemy to focus down on the unit, or by buffing back died units that aren't objective secured when they need it.

Show Them Steel, Show Them Contempt - Add 1 to the unit's Leadership, and its models can ignore mortal wounds on a 5+

This is probably one of the weaker orders. Adding a single pip of leadership to a unit won't general do much, especially as you have to do it very speculative at the beginning of your turn. The 5+ to mortal wounds is a little better and you could use this on a smite sponge to add some resilience but in general your enemy isn't going to waste to many mortal wounds on an infantry squad.

Remain Vigilant - units cannot be set up within 12*, and the unit can Hold Steady if charged (and its overwatch hits on a 5+)

This could be good for pushing back the turn 1 and 2 deepstrike shenanigans. But I don't see this being used very much. Again, if your worried about being charged then other orders would work better, such as move, move, move or for the emperor. If you put this on a unit the enemy can just ignore them. 

Overall the the commissar orders are not to bad, there are as always some good, some bad and some ok. I think there are as ever a couple that really stand out and will be used quite a lot. 

My real question here is how the interaction between the various officers and commissars orders will work. I highly doubt that you'll be able to double up on orders but will you have to do orders in a certain, well, order, say senior officers, officers then commissars or can you choo and change as you like. There is still a lot of information we don't know yet but I have no doubt that we will keep getting more and more information as we get closer to the Cadian boxset.

Guard leaks - psychic, relics and warlords

After looking at the regimental doctrines, we are looking at the psychic powers, warlord traits and then relics. We will dive in to psychic powers first:

Psychic Powers

TERRIFYING VISIONS - Malediction: warp charge 6. select one enemy unit within 18" Until the start of your next Command phase Subtract 2 from the Leadership + Your opponent cannot select that unit for the Insane Bravery Stratagem and no re-roll for Morale. Also roll 2D6 and if beat the enemy Ld they fail any actions they were doing

This could be good for removing an enemy objective secured unit from an objective with the added benefit of possibly failing an action, although on just 2d6, this is not very likely. 

GAZE OF THE EMPEROR - Witchfire: warp charge 6. select one enemy model within 12" of and visible. Draw a straight line between any part of that model's base and PsYKER's base. Roll one D6 for that enemy model's unit, and one D6 for each other unit that this line passes over: on a 1-5, the unit being rolled for suffers 1 mortal wound; on a 6, the unit being rolled for suffers D3 mortal wounds,

This might be good for dealing a few mortal wounds but really it's not going to be great, especially with just a 12 inch range. This could be useful as a last resort but not worth taking in general.

PSYCHIC BARRIER – Blessing: warp charge 6. select one friendly ASTRA MILITARUM unit within 12" of this PSYKER. models in that unit have a 5+ invulnerable save.

Like the previous incarnation this is a good power, being able to put an invulnerable save on a unit is always going to be good.

NIGHTSHROUD - Blessing: warp charge 6. select one friendly ASTRA MILITARUM unit within 12" of this PSYKER. That unit gains transhuman

Transhuman is getting to be pretty wide spread these days and while my first though was that this was pretty useless, actually I think it could be quite good, especially on infantry. Most weapons will be wounding on 3's usually, with quite a few on 2's. Bumping this up to a 4 will actually keep a few more guardsmen around, especially if you can get Psychic Barrier off as well!

MENTAL SHACKLES - Malediction: warp charge 6. select one enemy unit within 18" of this PsYKER. -2" from the Move and -2 from Advance and charge rolls

This could be quite useful when put on to a combat oriented unit, such as blade guard or wytches. Reducing the max move and charge from 18 to 14 and average from 13 to 9 is a big difference. This could be quite useful on a PSYKER your planning on pushing up the table.

PSYCHIC MAELSTROM - Witchfire: warp charge 6. roll a number of D6 equal to the result of the Psychic test. for each 5+, the closest enemy within 18" + visible suffers 1 mortal wound (max 6).

This could be very swingy, as you could do 6 mortal wounds or none. Personally I don't think it's worth taking as there are better power in this list.

So psychic power are pretty much at the same.level.they were before, there are a couple of good ones, a couple of ok ones and a couple of weaker ones, and again it's the defensive powers that look strongest.

As for warlord traits we have 6 listed and there doesn't appear to be any army specific ones, the same as for all the other things listed here. I would be surprised if we dont get some sort of army specific things for Cadian, Catachan and death corps at least. The first thing to note with the warlord traits is that if your chosen warlord does not have the officer keyword, it must take the Frontline Combatants trait.

FRONT-LINE COMBATANT - melee attack: exploding 6s and +1 to wound

I think that this is not a very useful trait. To make the most of it you need to tool the warlord up for close combat and guardsmen tend not to make very good combat monsters. Most of the time i think you'll be taking an officer anyway, so can't see this getting much use at all.

MASTER TACTICIAN – 3 unit redeploy and can go in strat reserves

This can be very useful, redeploying units can be very helpful and can really throw an opponent's plans off. Definitely a good option but is a one shot deal, meaning you don't gain anything after the pregame moves.

GRAND STRATEGIST – CP refund on a 5+ (per CP spent)

In a meta where CP's are so restrictive, getting extra CP can be very powerful. You'll get about 2 CP a game back when starting with 6 CP but you may get more or sometimes less. Very swingy but great when it works. 

SUPERIOR TACTICAL TRAINING – Select one type of order the model doesn’t know, it now knows them. E.g. officers can do commissar orders

This could be very useful now that orders seem to be split up so much (I'll go over orders in another post). This is one 9f the few that gives you guaranteed options during the whole game, as long as your warlord is alive.

OLD GRUDGES – select enemy unit pregame. Units with 6 inch of warlord have +1 to wound against that unit

Another good trait and very useful for taking down that must kill unit. However, like a lot of these traits, once that unit is dead, the usefulness of the trait disappears. Still one to consider but not the best.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE - can issue Orders to its own unit, even though you cannot normally select OFFICER.

This could be useful but a lot depends upon what the officers or command squads are capable of doing. If you can tool them up with special weapons  or if you have a specific role in mind for the squad than this could be useful, otherwise I think there may be little utility in this one.

So as usual with the various guard options, there seems a couple of good options, a couple of ok options and a couple of weaker options. Really I think that only Frontline Combatant is a really terrible option, all the others have a use, which you choose will partly depend on other rules we have yet to see. 

Lastly we have the relics, the biggest section here with a massive 8 options. Some names are familiar but most have changed how they work.

THE EMPEROR'S BENEDICTION – range 18 Pistol 3 S4 AP1 D2 Abilities: ignore the Look Out, Sir rule. unmodified wound roll of 6 does 1 mortal wound in addition

I'm guessing that this replaces a bolt pistol rather than a laspistol but even so, it's not a great option. Yes the buffs are decent but ap1 won't do much to most characters and 3 shots at D2 won't kill many even if they all hit.

TACTICAL AUTO-RELIQUARY OF TYBERIUS- issue +1 order

Extra orders are always good and with the command squads going down to just one order a turn, adding an extra order in is alway going to be useful. I can see this option being taken quite a bit.

DEATH MASK OF OLLANIUS – bearer + their unit gets a 4++

A 4+ invulnerable save is always good, especially as most characters will likely have a 5+ save and with all the ap around an invulnerable save is now even more important.

THE BARBICANT'S KEY Grand – Dark matter crystal/viel of shadows equivalent (e.g. pick up and put down same turn)

The option to move a unit around the board is very powerful, however, it seems that there is quite a bit we don't know. If this can be used on any units, then it's very good, if it's only on infantry it's not quite as good. Either way, it's a good choice.

KUROV'S AQUILA – Vect equivalent (e.g., 1 enemy strat costs 1 more CP for the game)

Again, another good relic. In a game with limited CP, upping the cost of a strat at a critical time in the game or even forcing an opponent not to use a stratagem is alway useful. 

GATEKEEPER 72” rang.: Blast. Turret Weapon. Heavy D3+6 str 9 ap-3 D3

While this looks like a good option, as we don't know the standard profile for a battle cannon, we don't know how much of an improvement it is. At a guess it will have more shots, better strength and better ap. If your going heavy on armour this could be a good option for a bit of extra fire power.

RELIC OF LOST Cadia- Cadian only. Once per battle. (Aura): CADIAN INPANTRY in range get +1 WS and BS and attacks and Ld

The first of the restricted options we've seen and while it carries a good number of bonuses, it could be very restrictive. Unless you build completely around Cadian units, this will have limited use.

ORDER OF THE BASTIUM STELLARIS – Transhuman for bearer and unit

 We have another transhuman option. This will be taken on command squads, especially if your warlord is contain within it. A good option for keeping your command squad and warlord alive.

PSY-SIGIL OF SANCTION Psyker model only know +1 power, cast +1 power

While being able to cast an addition power can be useful, guard psykers are not exactly power houses on the field. This could be useful but on the whole, I don't think this is going to be much use. 

ARMOUR OF GRAF TOSCHENKO bearer gets 2+ save and +1 wound

This relic goes up against the death mask and I would rather have a 4+ invulnerable rather than a 2+ save. The extra wound could be useful but with all the ap around I still think the death mask is a better option. 

LAURELS OF COMMAND Can issue one order (from a specific subset, not all orders) in the enemy turn. Once per game 

This could be very good or completely useless, it's very hard to know without knowing what orders are included. I suspect it's ones like fix bayonets and take cover. Hard to judge right now but I still think it will be of limited use.

As always, there are some standout options here and some not so good options. My pick here are probably the death mask and armour, but we will have to see what the rest of the rules are like before deciding.

Guard leaks - regiments

 Im a few days behind the curve on this one but I'm going to cover it anyway, as I've a few thoughts on what's been leaked. Unfortunately they are not always good thoughts! As of writing this post I haven't actually had time to listen to the video, so I'm going from the list only but even so, I'll post up several post covering the whole leak, broken down in to sections that are related, at least vaguely. First up the main army wide rules, the Regimental Doctrines.

We don't have full details of these yet just a name and brief description but it's enough to get the idea. 

1)Mech infantry - may disembark after moving.

Could be useful for full mechanised armies

2)Parade Drill - remain stationary, lasguns and hotshot lasguns become heavy 2

Maybe useful for turn 1 and 2 but after then everything is going to be in half range and your loosing movement. 

3)Cult of Sacrifice - gain "cult of sacrifice" l, +1 hit below starting strength

We don't know what "cult of sacrifice" means yet but the +1 to hit is always useful.

4)Armoured superiority- Sentinels count as 3 models for objective’s. Other tanks 5. Super heavies count as 10

It's likely we'll loose our spearhead ability, so could be useful on armoured and mechanised lists.

5)Blitz Division- costs halve PL when working what goes in reserve. Can deploy on turn 2 with the “turn 3” rules for setup

I guess this means you can put a greater percentage of your army is reserve and come on further up the board earlier, good for the "alpha" strike type armies but leaves you weak turn 1.

6)Bombadiers - if a Vox or sentinel can see a enemy unit and is within 12 from an artillery piece add +1 to hit

Should be good for artillery heavy lists, how useful artillery will be is yet to be seen but currently this wouldn't have much use.

7)Heirloom weapons +4 inch range

Extra range is always good, just depends on which weapons this affects, all weapons and it's very good, just 24" plus weapons and less useful. 16" flamers anyone?

8)Brutal Strength - moving and shooting heavy weapons no -1 hit, first turn in combat and +1 str for infantry

No negative to moving heavy weapons is good but confused by the second one, does it mean you get strike first and +1 strength or +1 strength in first round of combat? Either way, not great as guard don't like combat.

9)Grim Demonour - do negative rolls for combat attrition

Could be useful but guard tend to either not suffer enough that combat attrition is an issue or completely wiped out, might have some worth depending upon other rules.

10)Guerilla fighters - ranged attacks more than 18 inches away give infantry and sentinels soft cover

Cover is always useful and will help out early game, but late game it's probably not going to have much affect.

11)Elite shock troops - reroll one hit roll per unit

Free rerolls are always useful, again though will this affect all units or just infantry. All units will be great, just infantry is still good but possibly end up only usable by half your army.

12)Industry efficiency - treat Ap1 as AP0

Armour of contempt. If this works on everything it's will be great, even ap1 is bad for guardsmen, as with a few others, if this only works on vehicles your not making full use of the doctrine. 

13)Swift as the wind - infantry gain +1 inch movement. All others gain +2. Also add +1 to charge rolls

Great for fast moving armies, in a game where movement is key, this could be very useful.

14)Trophy hunter - attacks against monsters and vehicles get +1 str

Limited use no matter how you look at it. Also does this affect all weapons and attacks or just melee attacks? If all attacks, then it's good but if just melee, it's a bit weak.

15)Recon operators - Cavalry and sentinel units get a pre game move must end further than 9 inches away from the enemy.

This could be very useful for stopping early game assaults and things but again, your using half a your doctrines before the game and that's it. Unless your going heavy on cavalry and sentinels this isn't very useful.

So that's all the doctrines, however, these seems to be some confusion over whether you will loose Hammer of the Emperor when you choose a doctrine. If you do loose it, it makes a number of these look very weak and not worth while taking, however, if you get to keep it then there are very few weak option just very niche, like Recon Operators.

Personally there is still a lot of unknowns for me, such as whether some abilities work for every unit or only certain types, hopefully when I get around to.watching the video there will be some additional information.

Also I thought I would cover tank aces here. I don't yet know if they will operate the same way as before or if you'll be able to pay points for them. 

1)Name Unknown - SUPER-HEAVY model only. This model gains the OFFICER keyword and knows Mechanised Orders. In your Command phase, it can issue one Order, and the unit you select for that Order can be an ASTRA MILITARUM TITANIC unit.

Possibly useful if you have multiple super heavies but I think your better off with one of the other tank aces.

2)METICULOUS CALIBRATOR – Ignores Enemy Light Cover

Could be very useful for some of the weapons, such as demolisher cannons by reducing saves or even bypassing them altogether.

3)MECHANICAL PACK RAT- Transhuman on a tank

Useful for a high priority tank to keep it alive but there is very little in the game that can wound a LRBT on less than a 4.

4)VETERAN COMMANDEER - Pick a bonus regimental doctrine

This looks one of the best options, being able to give your tank an additional doctrine could be big, especially if you don't have much armour in the list.

5)KNIGHT OF PIETY - This model has a 5++ invulnerable save. Ignore mortals on a 5+,

Invulnerable saves are good, not as good as they once were but will help keep your tank alive for longer, especially against the dedicated anti-tank weapons that tend to push your saves up this high.

6)MASTER OF CAMOUFLAGE- Get light cover from ranged attacks over 12 inches away. Titanics must be 18”

Being able to get a cover save for a vehicle is good, it will help early game to keep you valuable tank alive but becomes less useful as the game goes on.

7)STEEL COMMISSAR – Gains Commissar Orders, can order ogryn.

The main question is whether it gains the rest of the commissar abilities, such as leadership and moral bonuses.

Overall, there are a number of good options here, it will mostly come.down to how they work, as they like present options as replace a warlord trait or are they a point bases upgrade.

So far I'm happy with these options, there are definitely some better than others but on the whole I'm positive about these changes 

 

Guard rules previews

So along side the preview of models we have also had some rules previewed and teased in various articles. I'll start with the main preview and move on to some of the teasers found within the various Warhammer Community articles. 

The main preview we got was around how army rules will work. As it stands, you have to choose a regimental doctrine either from the main armies (Cadian, Catachan, Mordian, etc) or create one from the various custom doctrines, going forward it appears that you will just have a list, much like the custom doctrines, to choose from to create your own army wide doctrine and then various units within your army will have there own special rules based on their own regiments, such as the Cadian infantry squad not having heavy weapons but two special weapons. The two examples they give are "Cult of Sacrifice" and "Parade Drill"

 Of these two, I can see "Cult of Sacrifice" being used far more than "Parade Drill", but this does lead into the second part of the post, rules we can infer from WarCom articles. "Parade Drill" turns the lasguns from, we assume, Rapid 1 to Heavy 2, which means that the rumours that the Front Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire order has most likely changed from making the weapons Rapid 2 to Heavy 2, which isn't great.

Additionally, as I mention above, we have been able to see how the army compositional changes are effecting the infantry squads. We know that Cadian squads will have no heavy weapons but two special weapons, both from articles and images but we also know that, despite rumours to the contrary, standard infantry squads will still have the option for taking a heavy weapons team. 

In addition we also know that there will be addition changes to the heavy weapons squads, with the addition of "spotters, loaders, Sergeants and more". Loaders are I suspect just the extra guy we've always had but spotters could be interesting, maybe helping remove cover or similar. Sgts will be helpful for leadership, not that heavy weapons squads tend to suffer much through leadership, but an extra pip of leadership never goes amiss. The "and more" section I suspect will include Vox casters as we've seen them on on the images but I can't think what else they might include under here.

We've also had various references to the Command squads, both in articles and also on the live stream GW did and we know that they will be back to their old format, with a full 5 man squad including the commander. How this affects the squad or the look out sir rules around the commander is anyone's guess right now, as is how orders will work. 

Talking of orders, we have a little bit of information on orders. When talking about the new Castellans, it mentions that Castellans get to issue two orders a turn, which likely means that other officers only get to issue one order a turn. We also know that orders are going to change, but how we don't know but we can guess a couple, as we're told order will "encourage units to hit harder, pin down foes, and surge across the battlefield in mass human waves", so most likely reroll 1's of some sort, a bringing back of pinning tests or reduction in movement, and an updated move, move, move order.

Lastly we have the new Castellans themselves, which reinforces the rumours that you can have mixed armies but stating that "It can be used with any Astra Militarum army, Cadian or otherwise – even the Death Korps of Krieg and the Catachan Jungle Fighters". Plus we know that it will have a reroll bubble for core units, most likely a reroll 1's to hit bubble but maybe full rerolls, although this is unlikely.

So it seems that there will be a few changes. 

Edit: I've edited this just before I posted it as by now we've probably all seen \ heard the leaks. I'll do a full post on these as soon as I can but I'm on holiday so it might take a while.

Guard rumours

 I'll start with a warning, this is very text heavy and long!

So there have been a few more rumours floating around about the new guard codex and while a lot of these are still very rough and vague I still thought that I might put down a few thoughts about the rumours. To be honest I'm not liking a number of these rumours and hope that most of them don't turn out to be true but I suspect that I will be very disappointed with the new book.

The codex itself is apparently slated for Feb 2023! Were supposed to be getting a new edition in June 2023, just 4 months later! I'm really disappointed by this possibility, to be looking at having waited over 5 and a half years for a codex only to have a new edition drop just months after feels really bad. There is some hope for us though, as there is talk that the codex has been set up for the next edition, so all might not be lost. In addition part of this late release has been due to issues balancing the codex, not just internally but with other codices. There have apparently been multiple rewrites as it was initially far to powerful, this might be because they are trying to make to codex more elite, more of a Cadian Veterans codex rather than the mass recruits it has been. Personally I really don't like this idea and hope that they don't try and take it more elite. The guard should be about mass ranks of poorly trained and equipped soldiers charging across no-mans land and bayoneting the enemy. 

To this end they are supposed to have removed all the custom regiment traits options and skinned it down to just a handful of options, some sources say just 4 options, Cadian, Tanith, Kreig and Catachan. This sounds like a terrible idea and one I'm not sure about. I haven't read the new Votann book but there are apparently custom traits in there, so I find it strange that they would have removed the guard ones if the new squats have them. I could understand reducing the number of options or restricting the options but I can't see them removing them completely. As for only having 4 options for regiments, I don't see this either. We didn't have masses of them anyway, really just 7 for guard and 7 for scions, which is similar to most other codicies. Considering the guard as as varied and different as can possibly be, limiting the options to 4 seems very odd. One thing that could be said to off set this is the rumour that we can mix and match regiments traits within the army. Now there doesn't seem to be any specifics about how this will.work.but I figure that it will.work one of two ways, either you will choose a key word, say infantry, and all of the infantry will receive X trait and all vehicles will receive Y traits or we will be able to bring multiple patrol (and maybe spearhead) detachments in an army without costing any CP's, as long as certain conditions are met. I don't see us being able to just give every different unit a different trait and having one infantry squad having one trait and the next squad a completely different one. That would just be far to complicate and potentially overly powerful. 

Alongside these changes there are a number of changes to units, some sound good but most sound terrible. First up there are a number of units that are said to be deleted from the book, namely veteran squads, special weapons squads and conscripts. Now I could see them removing special weapons squads but the others? Veteran squads have been part of the codex since the beginning and are deeply ingrained in the lore of the guard as are conscripts. I could see them modifying both units slightly but not removing them altogether. All three of these units can be made from the standard infantry boxsets so it's not like they don't have official models, so are removed for that reason. I was disappointed to loose our platoons but at least we kept the various units but if we loose these units the old guard is well and truly dead.

As well as loosing units, our basic infantry squad is supposed to be getting an overhaul and not in a good way. We are to loose the ability to take heavy weapons in squads, probably due to there not being heavy weapons in the basic infantry box but we are to gain an extra special weapon instead. This changes the way infantry squads have always operated and will also invalidate a large chunk of.my own squads! Back in the day infantry squads use to be sold with heavy weapons, that's how fundamental they were to the squads, so to remove them just doesn't sit well with me. The extra special weapon I guess is to compensate for this and also for the removal of veteran squads as well. Personally I think it's a bad move.

The next is less of a removal and more of a side step. Heavy weapons squads are out and Field Ordinance Batteries (hence forth F.O.B's) are in. There are two separate rumours floating around about this, the first is that heavy weapons squads are out and that the new F.O.B's are in but not as a direct replacement. The new units will be a heavier version with heavy heavier weapons, such as the heavy mortar and laser destroyers. The second rumour is that it's just a straight name swap with some minor rules changes, potentially updated weapons profiles. I think this latter rumour is more likely due to the leaked image we saw a few weeks back, where you could see some heavy weapons teams on the background, all of which looked like slightly updated models of the current teams. All I can say is that I hope we get plasma cannons or multimeltas in the new kits, as it would be nice to finally get some! Apart from that, I don't think going from heavy weapons squads to F.O.B's will make much difference.

Another unit change is to tank commanders, which are said to be moving from bs3 to bs4 but with a plus one to hit with turret weapons. This seems like a bit of a silly change and completely unnecessary. Tank commanders are not going to be better commander but better crews as well, they'll have the best drivers, gunners and kit, so having them all be bs3 makes sense, changing them to bs4 doesn't make sense, and the plus one to hit makes even less. If they are trying to nerf tank commanders why not just make them a one per detachment unit, that would reduce their impact on the table top and keep in with the fluff, a lot more efficient that messing with their bs. 

Now on to the few good changes to the codex, although it's a bit of a stretch to say even that! I guess it's more just not bad changes than good ones. Anyway, firstly there is the changes to command squads, with the combined command squad back again, with officers being in a unit with the rest of the command squad, like it use to be. In addition the whole unit will gain the character keyword, which will increase survivability significantly. I wonder if they will bring the other advisers back in to the squad as well, although si suspect that they won't and will leave them as individual characters as they are. 

The scions as said to receive a boost as well, with their lasguns going from 18 to 24 inch range as standard with exploding 6's to hit. While I think the first part is welcome, I wonder if the second will be a standard feature or part of a doctrine. I would be surprised is it was a standard thing rather than part of a doctrine but I'll take it either way.

Lastly we have the deathstrike, which is apparently going to receive a significant boost to bring it more inline with where it should always have been, with the ability to dish out multiple mortal wounds across a wide number of units, doing significant damage to an energy army. The only down side is that there is supposed to be an equally significant price hike but I'm perfectly happy with that, the deathstrike should always have been a very expensive but hugely powerful weapon of mass destruction that was feared by your enemy.

In addition to the changes to the units in the codex there are a number of units that are not in the codex but will make an appearance. There seems to be three new units that are pretty much confirmed, these being the new Rough Riders, Kasrkins and the new Royal Dorn tank. However, there now seems to be some extra information on some of these. The Kasrkins are all but confirmed as a Kill Team release for I to the dark and it seems that we will see them in either 3 or 6 months time with a main box release, which if it's in 6 months that would tie in with the new guard codex release, however, I suspect that it will be the one in 3 months, ready for the Xmas release to drive up some hype for the codex in the new year. The other information is about the Rogal Dorn tank which is apparently actually called the Praetorian tank, as Rogal Dorn was the Praetorian of Terra. I for one think that Praetorian is significantly better than Rogal Dorn.

Lastly there is some talk of the new Combat Patrol box for guard. The box is said to have a command squad, two Cadian infantry squads, a field ordinance battery and a sentinel. Now this sounds very light on points to me. Currently a company commander, command squad, two infantry squads, a heavy weapons squad and a sentinel only costs 280 points with most upgrades being free. A combat patrol box is supposed to be around 500 points, maybe with a few upgrades to make the points but there is no way you could make 220 points in upgrades on these units. The only way you could reduce that gap is to increase the points significantly, which would basically mean your running t3 space marines. Which is just rubbish. I think there either has to be the new tank in there or were barking up the wrong tree all together.

All this considered I am really worried about where the next guard codex maybe taking us. Thai is the first time I can remember being genuinely worried about the upcoming codex and worried for the future of my forces, which may find themselves invalidated overnight. I hope that many of these rumours prove to be inaccurate or ever outright false, however I suspect that many of them will be accurate, far more than I would like. 

 

New guard from GW

So after my last post about the leaked image, I'm following it up with the more detailed images that GW released in response to said leak. GW are getting pretty good at doing these sort of things and I think it's good, it gives us some real information and a proper look at the models.

First up we have Ursula Creed, Ursarkar Creeds daughter and Lord Castellan of Cadia in her own right. 

I'm not one hundred percent sold on this model. These are some great bits to it, with some very nice details, like the torn cloak. I really like that the model is very obviously female, even in those leaked pictures but is not some over sexualised skin tight body suit wearing femme fatale. 

And I really hate the stupid helmet (top right). I like the binocular option over the rod thing, however I wonder if the rod may give an in-game bonus, along the lines of the MT command rods. I still don't like the Cadia totem in the background. My biggest question right now is about Kell? Will we see a replacement Kell? I really hope that we do, hopefully a son or daughter of Kell, vowing to continue the family honour and defend the latest Lord Castellan Creed with they life, as their father did before them. 

Overall, I rate this model about a 8 out 10, really nice but just lacking a little something (although not sure what)

Next we have the new sentinel and I like this model as well, although there are a couple of bits on it that I'm less sure on. 

 

Overall this is a good looking model, an update to the old model but not so far removed that it leaves you wondering what model it's supposed to be. It looks much more "realistic" at least for a 40k model, while retaining many of the classic parts, such as the legs and rear engine. 

There are however a couple of questions for me, firstly, where is the chain sword? I really hope we can still take the chain sword, stupid as it was, it's a classic sentinel thing. Secondly, in the top photo it looks like smoke launchers, which would be nice but does that mean that the search light in the bottom picture might also get some sort of rules? Or it in just there to for when you don't want smoke launchers? Lastly, I assume that's supposed to be the new rocket pods on the bottom? I think the old ones are better if it is. 

Overall another great model and a good update to the classic. I won't be looking to pick up any of these however, as I have 3 of the original ones and don't need any more.

Lastly for this little reveal we have the new Kasrkins. These are really nice models and really capture the old models nicely. 

I think that you could easily mix and match these new models to the old models (above) with little issue. There will probably be a difference in quality or finer details but otherwise I think they will be fine. There is quite a few rumours that these guys will be in kill team as a bespoke team and if they are I will definitely be looking at getting a full teams worth of guys. 

So, overall, a very good release but one that I won't be buying much from. If the other, unseen, rumoured models are as good as these ones, then I will almost certainly be making a few purchases.

New guard leak photo.

 

So this picture has apparently been doing the rounds for a couple of weeks now but hasn't been available to the general public until more recently. This is an amazing photo and shows lots of nice shiny new models. Some of these models are of interest to me and some are not. I do look forward to seeing the new models and it will be good to get some updated models. However, there are not many models that I actually need for my collection, and these that I'm interested in are not shown on this photo. 

But let's look at what is in the photo. The first thing that strikes me is the Sentinels and I say Sentinels as there is actually two in the picture, one rear left and one right at the back on the right. The left one is an armoured sentinel and the one on the right looks like a scout sentinel. They look a bit beefier than the old ones but are not to far removed that they look like completely different models. I like them but I have 3 and don't need any more right now. 

Next up is the new "Creed" model. This is, to me anyway, an obvious replacement for the old Creed and may well be based on Creeds daughters or other descendents. This is one of the few models I hight actually look at getting, although I might chop the big Cadia symbol off the back.

The Kasrkins models do look really good and I'm hoping that these come out as a Kill Team or they release rules for Scions so that I can use them in Kill Team, as I don't need any Kasrkins for my armies and they won't fit with the models I already use for my scions. 

There looks like a few new Cadian squads as well, an infantry squad, heavy weapons squad and command squad. It's had to see to many details of these models but according to the rumours the infantry squad is going to be a new veteran infantry squad. Again, I don't have a lot of need for these guys, I have numerous heavy weapons squads, more than I can use (due to rule of 3), I also have lots of infantry squads, more than enough for the armies I field and I have plenty of commanders and command squads. I might change my mind on buying some new boxes if they also bring out a new Catachan version of each, then I may well invest in the new command squad box at least and possibly a box of veteran guard, if that is what the new box will be.

Lastly, almost hidden in the middle is a new commissar model. The rumours seem to point towards this model being a lord commissar rather than another regular commissar. It looks to me like he's carrying a power sword and a power fist but I can't say for sure. I may get this model, depending on how it looks close up, the last couple of models haven't been to my taste. 

All in all the picture looks good and there are a number of nice shiny new kits to come, although we're still missing the new tank and the new rough riders, which are the unit that I'm most interested in. 

An edited picture (contrast, brightness, autofix button)

Edit: ok, so literally hours before this post goes live, GW release a whole load of images and info on some of these models! Don't worry though, I'll get to them very shortly.

New guard rumours

 

Just a quick post to mention all the new Guard rumour's that are floating around, specifically a certain picture that many people have seen. Unfortunately I have yet to see this photo, despite much searching and scouring through various threads and websites. Hopefully it will surface soon and we'll all get to see, because I am very interested in seeing. So far though I am not overly excited, as most of the units that have been mentioned I have no plans on buying. they all sound very nice and there has been a few mentions around that the new Kasrkins might actually be a new bespoke kill team rather than a general 40k unit, which if that's true, that will be very interesting and definitely something I will be looking at purchasing. 

The main thing for me about all this is that the main units that I would be very interested in buying have not been mentioned yet, so I'll have to keep my ear to the ground a little longer to see if anything crops up. 

All these new rumours and pictures do give me some hope that the codex isn't quite as far away as I had feared, maybe its only a couple of months away rather than the very end of the year! I'm still inclined to think its going to be September or October before we get it, but time will tell and with the speed of the last couple of codex releases hopefully I am wrong.

Adepticon previews

 

So we have had a round of reveals from Adepticon and while there's has been some interesting reveals, there has been nothing guard related or even kill team related.

While there is nothing of note for me personally, there is still a few bits to mention. We have seen the next couple of codex releases, namely Knights and chaos Knights. This means that we will get Tyranids next followed by the two Knights, which will probably take us up until June or July, depending upon how quickly they release them. After this there is still Chaos Marines, Chaos Desmond and Guard. Now, while there is nothing concrete out there that I know of that I can point to, several people have made suggestions about the Chaos Marines book being fairly well progressed and likely to be sooner, rather than a later release. This would suggest to me that we might see a complete chaos release, as in Chaos Knights, followed by Marines and finally daemons. This would leave guard until last and push them back to as late as September or October this year. 

In addition to this one of the previous rumour pictures, this one; 

Appears not be be the hoped for new plastic Tauros vehicles for guard, it's appears not to have been guard at all, which was one of the original possibilities. It was revealed to be part of the new necromunda ash wastes game.

I don't know about you but that is definitely the rear wheel of the buggy, everything matches up. I mean, there is a chance that it we will see the same wheel on a new Tauros, it is obviously an imperial style wheel but I think that it's unlikely. So, as it stands, we've had one teaser that might still be a guard one, the grenade Lance thing, but that's it so far, which makes sense if we're not looking like we'll get a codex until September time. 

As it stands, the guard have the oldest codex out there, (at 4 years and 5 months) followed by daemons (at 4 years and 2 months) and Imperial Knights (at 3 years and 8 months). This means that once we have the Knights as well as the Tyranids codex, the only other codex to release is the Chaos Marines codex (at just 3 years old). Is it any wonder why we can't seem to win much of anything right now?

New guard rumours

So we finally have some more guard rumours floating around. Most of these have come from a single source, that of chapter master valrak,  who has been fairly accurate as far as I know but I have also found some other sources around and about, all of completely unknown quality or reliability but I shall muse on them anyway.

First up is that tank rumour again, the Rogal Dorn. I've spoken about this before and It's still a stupid idea and a stupid name as well. We have arguably the best tank in the game, yes it's not the most powerful or fastest or most resilient bit it is the most versatile and cost effective. Why we need another tank is beyond me, what we really need is for the Leman Russ to have its damage output match the rest of it. 

Talking of vehicles, we have been told that the sentinel kit is being updated. I'm not sure what really needs updating here. The sprues could be made more compact and we could gain access to multi-meltas but apart from that I don't think it need updating and to be honest I can't say I've heard anyone else saying that it does either. I just hope that they don't turn it in to some 10 gun monstrosity like that have with most of the space marine stuff.

The rest of the rumours are about infantry kits and we'll start with the new HQ's. From what I've seen, both on the video and other places, it seem that these are most likely going to generic commanders, probably in clam pack form. There is likely to be some sort of new named characters revealed, as Creed has gone AWOL (on holiday with the Necrons), so a new Cadian character is needed. It makes sense that these would be clam packs as well, as currently we only have commander models included within the command squad boxes. I suspect we will see a new commissar as well but it would be nice to see a new psyker, priest and advisor models.

There was also talk of a new veteran or command squad box. This doesn't makes sense to me. A command squad is 4 strong and to be honest is pretty useless unless it's armed with 4 special weapons, usually plasma or melta. I'm not sure how a new box set could for fill both a vet squad and command squad options, without having to buy multiple boxes to get a full squad of vets or having lots of bodies left over. While a new veteran box would be nice, I think that just refreshing the current line and having options for veterans within the box makes more sense but we shall see where this goes. The other option for this is that they are going to redo the whole range and turn them in to a very veteran looking force, which again I think is the wrong way. The guard are not formed of veterans, they are few and far between because guardsmen and women don't last long enough to become vets! The vast majority of guard are raw recruits or basically train soldiers. 

However, there is one rumour that has got my interest and combined with the rumour engine picture, has opened up a lot of possibilities.

When I first saw the image I thought either of new strom troopers, which would be a little silly given how recently we got the Scion boxes, new marine primaris scouts, but again with the black Templar releases I'd expect new scout to look a lot like neophytes, or possibly new Kasrkins. To be honest though, Kasrkins were bottom of the possibility list at the time but have shot to the top with these rumours. The latest rumours seem to suggest that we will see a full release, more so than with scions, with Hq units, Troops and also heavy weapons. Now, a couple of places have not mentioned the heavy weapons, just hq and troops, which sounds more accurate to me, as this is what they use to have and they have traditionally relied on normal cadians for heavy support, something that the scions\storm troopers of old used to do themselves but now can't (not that I'm salty about it or anything!) Anyway, new Kasrkins would be great, as they are such an iconic unit and having the option to take heavy weapons would be great too. If they do give Kasrkins heavy weapons as well as other options, such as command squads, I will probably start running my scions as Kasrkins and take advantage of the extra units, as I would love to be able to run heavy weapons in my scions force. 

All in all, from Valrak's video and the other bits and pieces I've found around then place, (some of which may have come along due to the video) it seems like there is going to be a refresh of the cadian line, maybe not a full range refresh but certainly a sizable one. Although there seems to be no mention of any other regiments in this latest batch of rumours, which is disappointing. The best news out of all this however is that very fact that we are getting rumours and tesasers, as this means that the codex is closer than we thought, at least a couple of months but it will be this year at least. 

Future guard codex

 There have been a lot of things released recently that have been guard related, mostly as snippets of bigger things but still, these small things could be important to future guard codicies. 

Firstly we have the Warhammer community post about points drops and while there was a lot of points adjustments for Necrons and Marines, there was also one for guard. The Leman Russ battle tank will drop 10 points. Now, there are still a couple of questions, does this only apply to the standard Russ, or will it include commanders and Pask? If it's just the standard, I don't think it will make a massive difference, yes, it will make them more viable but most people rank tank commanders anyway, so will probably continue to do so. If it is on all Russ tanks, then, again, there will be little change but we might see a few more upgrades included with the extra points. Overall I think this will be a good change if it includes all versions, otherwise it's not going to do much.

Also along side the points changes there have also been a few rules changes, the one that has caught my eye at the moment is the change for detachments and armies. My main worry with this is how it will interact with my mixed forces armies, such as my Scion force with guard support. Now, I haven't seen the rules in their original form but there has been lots of speculation and discussion about them. The WarCom article discussed how your whole army now has to have the same selectable keyword, such as <chapter>, which would mean that the army would have to be purely Scion or purely guard. However, there are some people saying that it doesn't stop multiple detachments being different, as if they don't have the same selectable keyword, such as <regiment> and <tempests regiment> then they aren't affected by the rules. Meaning that you couldn't have Cadian and Catachan together but you could have Cadian and Lambdan Lions. Personally I am not sure about all this, it feels to me that the main idea is to make armies mono-faction and stop soup lists, however this would cause me a few problems. Hopefully I will be able to get a look at the actual rules fairly soon and be able to figure out exactly what it says and means. 

Next up are the rumours, those whispers in the dark that may, or may not, be accurate. There are 3 basic rumours going around that seem substantial enough to actually take seriously, those being a new tank, 3 new regiments and the wheel teaser. 

We'll start with the tank. From various rumours the new tank is somewhere between the Leman Russ and Baneblade, I guess something like Macharius or Malcador. I really don't know what this tank is about or what it's for? We have an good super heavy tank (a few rules tweaks and it's would be great) and we have a good heavy tank, so I don't really see where another tank would fit. I can see where a light tank would fit, something like the chimerax, chimerro or chimedon, or even a kit with all three, and with suitably restricted transport capacity. That would fill an actual gap in the range, rather than some imagined one. What will trigger some people even more is the fact that it's apparently called the Rogal Dorn tank. 

Next we have the teased wheel. Now most people agree that this is an imperial wheel, the main question is which imperial? Realistically we are looking at guard or marines, as all the other factions would use something other than standard wheels. I don't think it would be marine, as although the rumoured codex 2.0 is coming, I can't think of a vehicle that would be wheeled and would fit in to the codex, as we have a bike and buggy (old attack bike) and the speeders have been replaced like for like. I really don't see where another wheeled vehicle would fit. There are however a couple of vehicles that could fit very nicely in the guard range that would be wheeled. The first ones that spring to mind and also to a lot of other people's minds are the Tauros and Tauros Venator (that's Tauros and not Taurox, confusing I know!). These recently left the forge world website and would be excellent candidates for GW to make into plastic models. They would fit the line up really nicely, sitting above the sentinel but below the Russ and even hellhound (and variants). Another option are rough riders with a quad like buggy for heavier weapons, much like the GSC Jackals. Either of these could be viable options and I really would like to see some more fast attack options for the guard codex.

Last up we have to most distant rumour, the new line up of 3 new regiments, possibly taking us up to 5 plastic regiment boxes for guard. I can see there being an expanded line up, as we now have plastic DKoK troops and it wouldn't take much to add in a command and heavy weapons squad as much of the work has been done by forge world and it would be the relatively simple process of transferring that to plastic (ok,so it's not as simple as that sounds). There is also rumours that the second will be Elysian drop troops. These were until recently a forge world army but they have been dropped by forgeworld, possible as GW are going to take them up. This would also for with the Tauros link as these were Elysian vehicles. The third army is as yet, to me anyway, unknown. I would like to think that it's not a new range but the Catachan range updated, getting rid of the funnily looking troopers for some proper looking figures. These three lines would sit along side the Cadian line quite nicely and make a full and varied guard line up.

The last thing I wanted to talk about has only just been released and it is this;

No why do I want to talk about Kroot and Tau? I dont, who does! Anyway, it's more the rules that I want to talk about. The pack rule means that for every troop slot that you take, you get a fast attack and two elite slots for free! That is quite some saving on spaces. This means that you could easily end up with a patrol detachment with 3 troops, 8 elite and 5 fast attack or battalion with 6 troop, 18 elite and 9 fast attack! That's a lot of extra slots. Why do I mention this? Simple, platoons. Imagine if they brought a similar system to guard, maybe take an infantry squad and get a special weapons squad and heavy weapons squad (one elite and one heavy slot) for free. While this is not the old platoon formation of old, it does give us some of that format back and not in a game breaking way. While I would love the old system back, this would work, although I might change the numbers around a little, say for every two troop choices you'd get one special and one heavy squad, to try and maintain the old format a bit more. Will they do this? I doubt it but it would be cool if they did give us something fun and fluffy.