Psychic and heirlooms

 

For the last post before we get in to the actual units I have combined the last two sections that are not covered anywhere else, the relics or heirlooms as the guard know them, and the psychic discipline, the Pyskana discipline. We will start with the relics and once again they are split in to general, regiment and Scion relics. There are actually not that many of the relics that I think need work, as a) there are not many relics and b) most are fairly balanced. 

The only general relic I think needs looking at is Kurov's Aquila. This is because it is a CP regeneration relic and with the changes to the way CP can be regenerated it has lost a lot of usefulness. It use to be combined with the Grand Strategist warlord trait to CP farm, somethi g I have done very successful in the past, but now it's really a choice between one or the other and if you want to go this way, grand strategist is the better option as you roll a dice for each CP spent not per stratagem. I think this needs changing to either reduce certain CP spends, say regimental specific ones, or be reworded to make the CP regeneration more certain, say on a 2+.

Of the regimental specific heirlooms there is only two relics that I think needs changing, the first being Valhallans Pietrov's pistol. Now I don't think the pistol profile or the actual ability needs changing here, what I think needs changing is the wording to bring it up to date with 9th edition, as currently you only loose one model as a result of a failed morale test, you loose others as part of the combat attrition test. As written, you would loose a model for the failed morale and then more for the combat attrition test, when it's intent is that you should only ever loose one model in total for both parts. A quick up date to state that any nearby units who fail morale, loose a model and than auto pass combat attrition tests. 

The other relic that needs some work is the Armageddon Skull Mask of Acheron. Again, this is a moral modifying relic, in this case causing a moral debuff and again it needs bringing inline with 9th. I think that having a negative to leadership is fine but it also needs to come with modification to combat attrition tests. Causing fails on 1's and 2's in addition to the negative to leadership is the way forward for relics and Stratagems, and that what needs to be applied here I think. 

In addition to the Regimental relics, there are Scion relics, one generic one and 6 specific ones. Of these there is 9noy one relic that I think requires adjustment. The Kappic Eagles relic, Distraction Charges, comes in to effect during overwatch. Now, with overwatch being a Stratagem, your effectively having to pay twice for a relic. I do like this relic, it actually has a real use, helping your guys stay out of combat, however, I think that if you take this relic, you shouldn't have to pay for overwatch as well. You have to be within just a couple of inches of the model with the relic for it to take effect, so it's not going to mean that half your army can fire overwatch, but it will mean that it has a real value. Overwatch isn't some overly powerful ability, but it is useful and with it now being a Stratagem, this relic is pretty useless. One other way to limit it would be that you had to nominate just a single unit within a short range that could use the ability and overwatch for free. Still restricting overwatch but also making this relic useful. 

Lastly we have the guards psychic powers, the psykana discipline. While it's not a very powerful discipline it does have a number of 7seful defensive powers. One of the few offensive powers is the one that I think needs work. Gaze of the Emperor is short range mortal wound dealing power and my issues with it come from the randomness of it. First you have to pass the test, then roll for range, the roll to see if you actually do anything. That's 3 lots of dice rolling, with no guarantee you'll actually achieve anything. The main issue for me is the random range. If they would make the range fixed, at least you could work out your chances of successfully doing wounds, but with out even knowing the range it's difficult to plan anything. Personally I would like to see the casting value rise, an 8 would still be fine, the range be fixed, say 8 or 9 inches, and the chance of doing mortal wounds increased, even a 3+ would be fine. All these things would really make it a good l, reliable power but not overly so.

So, this is the last post from the rules before we get in to actual units, starting with HQ units and you probably have spotted a general theme to my complaints. Anything relating to moral needs to be brought inline with the new ways of 9th edition, as does anything relating to overwatch. Randomness needs to be removed or at the very least toned down and finally guard are not good at combat, so stop giving us stuff to use in combat because chances are we'll die before we get to use them. How many of these things will be fixed, especially in a way I want them is debatable but hopefully they will change a few of the more obvious ones. 

 

Some more kill team details

 

Ok this post is quite a bit later than I wanted to post, but I think it needed posting anyway. So we've had a few more detail of the new kill team, in the form of another 3 posts from the Warhammer Community pages. These is not a lot of new information here but it does clarify a lot of things that I've been wondering about, although there is still a lot of information missing.

We'll start by looking at the first of the three articles, which gives us more details on Action Points. We get confirmation here of the basic 1AP actions of move, charge, shoot and fight, with the addition of fall back, at a costly 2AP. It's also noted that there will be other actions, but we were aware of this thanks to the Comms specific action we've seen before. Extra information that is noted is the fact that you cannot typically repeat action, although I suspect that you will be able to double move, and that most units will have a 2AP limit, except for marines, both chaos and imperial, and Quin's, who will have 3 and custodies who get a massive 4AP.  And that's it for that post, like I said, not a huge amount of information there but it's nice to get some clarification on the actions available.

The next post has significantly more information in it and tell us about how to build you list. The first thing to note is that points no longer apply. Now I have mixed feelings about this but I will come to that later, let's have a look at what's in the article first. We get confirmation that fosters are still a thing and that these will still form the basis for all your games. The rosters will still be up to 20 models but that's where the similarly ends. We now pick our models from fire teams, and depending upon what faction you are, depends on how many fire teams you can pick and what's in them. The Ork kommandos for example have one team they can pick from and a total of 1 leader and 9 other models from a list of 10 potential options. There are addition restrictions of the list, like how many of each type of operative you can pick. This does restrict your option quite a bit but hopefully will balance the game. We also get a view of the guardsmans list, not the krieg\vets list but the standard guard. Here we can see we can choose 2 fire teams from a selection of 2, guard and Scions. Be we haven't seen the Scions but I suspect the selection will be similar but numbers more restrictive. For guard we can choose up to 7 guardsmen from a selection of seven plus we can take a sergeant in place of one of these options if we don't have a leader. 

This means that a guard team will be a maximum of 14 models, which is less than the 17 I usually ran previously. Yes, the maximum plasma content will be 3 (two guns, one pistol) but it still feels like we're down on bodies. We've still go all the options, but there are some other, more subtle changes, such as 8f you take a Comms, you loose a special weapon. Previously you could take one in addition to any special weapons but not now. Also there will no longer be multiple Sergeant type models on the table, just one. No more combat specialists for guard. 

In the article they also mention the death guard list, of 3 marines and 8 pox walkers. Now they call it a fire team but I suspect that you might only be able to bring one fire team, this is due to the old points values. Now, I know points are t in use now, but I had a little play with the current costs to give a rough guide to how things might stand. The guard team, with 14 members maxed out on weapons gives you around 90 points. The Ork kommandos is harder to calculate as only standard kommandos currently exist, but it works out at 98 points. The death guard again is a little hard but with a plague marine fighter, gunner and champion plus a normal marine and the 8 pox walkers (a reasonable assumption I think) it brings you out to 99 points. While it's only a rough guide it does suggest that there is a little bit of an imbalance but we will have to wait and see what then full rules bring before we can make a proper assessment. 

There are a couple of other things about the article to mention. First the roster, there are lots of specialists listed in the left column, some we've seen before and some we haven't. The standard, like leader, Comms, sniper are there but so are confident and bruiser, both of which are new and unknown, at least from what I've read. It'll be interesting to see what these all mean. The second thing is at the bottom.of the article, where it talks about special and rare equipment that can be requisitioned or captured during campaigns. Now I know this is for campaigns only but it still sounds cool, imagine a guardsman welding a Eldar shuriken weapon or a tau pulse rifle, very cool, although I don't suspect they mean capture in quite that way. 

The last post for the week revealed a couple of data cards and also how we will be getting all of them. As many of us suspected, we will be getting a core rules book and an army book, or compendium as GW are calling it. This book will include all the data sheets we need to.play the game a d apparently there may well be some surprises in there too. Anyway, we will need this book to play any of the factions outside the two in the started box. 

We were then given several data sheets, a poxwalker, dire avenger and custodian guard. There is t much to say about these that hasn't already been said but there were a few things that were picked out as note worthy. Firstly the GA for poxwalkers is 2, rather than the usual 1. This gives weight to the idea that this is the group activation stat, or how.many can be activated per turn, in this case two models as they are very much a horde unit. Secondly, Dire avengers are going to be lethal. 

It is the custodian guard data sheet that has some of the biggest reveals though. Firstly, it has 18 wounds, which would appear to the highest we will get in kill team, everything else will, to start with at least, have less than that. Secondly, everyone appears to have 3 defence dice. Now this is a surprise. Yes the save number changes but I would have though that the number of dice would change to. I would not expect a pox walker and a custodian guard to have the same defence dice. We also see information about some of the other rules and actions. There are pick up actions and overwatch is also an action. How these work is still anyone's guess. There wasn't a lot of content in this post but there was a lot of I formation to get us going for the release of KT2. 

Warlord and tank aces

 

For this section I will o my be looking at the warlord traits available from the various guard books and not from the main rule book. 

The main codex consists of the 6 standard traits and the regimental traits, with Psychic Awakening introducing 6 MT traits plus the 12 tank ace abilities, split across three sections. First up we'll look at the original warlord traits. Here there are two that stand out a needing some work, namely Grand Strategist and Draconian Disciplinarian. Grand strategist falls down mostly on the CP regeneration. With the changes to the rules for retaining CP, this trait lost a lot of its usefulness, add to this the 9th edition CP system and being able to regain s CP on a 5+ becomes almost pointless. The ability to re-roll 1 dice in a whole game doesn't make up for this lack of usefulness. Yes, gaining one or even 2 CP in a game and being able to re-roll that games loosing roll might be good occasionally, most of the time it's not going to help. I would like to see this trait changed to give a single re-roll per turn. This would make it actually usable in a game. 

The second trait that needs work, Draconian Disciplinarian, mostly needs updating to bring it fully inline with 9th. As it stands you are potentially in a worse position than you would be. With a normal, a non commissar warlord that is, you just get to re-roll moral, a nice bonus but nothing to get excited about. If you have a commissar though, you could actually end up worse off as you loose a model then re-roll, potentially loosing another and then D3 more, for a minimum of 3 models total or up to 5 models. Under normal circumstances you with a full squad, you probably wouldn't loose that many for moral and combat attrition. While the main re-roll for moral is fine and can be left, the second half needs changing. I would like to see it move to loosing a guy and re-rolling, with a second failure either causing another model to be removed and the test considered passed, or loosing another model and combat attrition only counting on 1's. Auto passing the test would be my preference, as that fits more with the fluff of a commissar but either would be acceptable. 

Another issue with moral also occurs with the Mordian Regiment warlord trait. Under the old system, where you just lost models when you rolled your initial test, having a chance to keep them was useful. I see this new system, you roll you initial test, then combat attrition, then roll again to see if those models that failed the attrition test actually run. This is very long winded and requires lots of dice rolling. I like the idea but think that it should be simplified along the lines of halving the number of models that flee. 

There are three other regimental warlord traits that I think need looking at, these are the Vostroyans, Tallarn and Armageddon traits. My issue with these has nothing to do with the actual traits, they are all reasonable traits, the issue is more about the type of trait that they are and that is Combat traits. All three of these give benefits to combat and combat is not really where you want your warlord to be. Even the most tricked out warlord for any of these regiments is going to struggle against pretty much any units out there except maybe tau fire warriors or grots. Against a full on combat units like vanguard vets or Watches, they are going to be little more than mince meat in seconds. The Vostroyan and Armageddon traits actually require your leader to be in combat and if he is, everything has probably gone horribly wrong, you've more than likely lost already. With the Tallarn trait this is less so, as it enables units to fall back and charge again in the same turn. However, this does mean that your warlord is now well within counter charge range and in real danger. While I get the idea behind all three traits, they are geared towards something the guard are not very good at, that being combat. I think these need changing to more reflect what your leader will actually be doing. For Armageddon it could be to do with disembarking transports, for Vostroyans it can to do with weapon ap and Tallarn it can be to do with movement, maybe always advancing 6 inches, which would tie in nicely with the Tallarn doctrine.

Of the Militarum Tempestus warlord traits there is really only one that I think could use some reworking. The Iotan Dragons warlord trait that means that units near by can ignore cover when shooting. While this isn't to bad, I think that it does limit the ability somewhat. I think that a straight +1 to shoot would be a better option. This would mean that it would be usable more often and also not limit shooting options.

On the whole, none of the warlord traits in their current state are unplayable, some are definitely better than others but all are actually usable. The changes above, or similar changes, would mean that all the traits are as equal as you could get them and make them all options when picking a force. With Psychic Awakening we also got another option instead of a warlord trait, these were tank aces. These were split in to MBT, Support or super heavy aces and there are a few that I think need looking at. 

Within the main battle tank aces, or Leman Russ aces as it actually is, there are two traits that I think need work, Armoured Rush and Weapon Expert. Armoured rush enables you to advance and still shoot, however what you really want to be doing is firing that turret weapon twice, so you'll rarely move over half speed. What this trait should enable you to do is move full distance and still fire twice. This would make this a really good trait and one that would actually be taken more often. Weapon expert gives turret weapons an extra ap, however I would have liked this to apply to all weapons. Yes, taking a battle cannon from -2 to -3 is good and having a punisher be -1 ap is also good but if your a weapons expert, surely you would apply your knowledge to all your guns right? Having all weapons be an additional-1 ap would really make this a good trait.

The next one I want to talk about is a support ace trait. Shatterer of Wills causes a leadership debuff, which while useful, isn't quite as good as it was. Yes it means that your more likely to fail, but it's not going to cause as many casualties as before. I think this needs adding to, to make 1's and 2's on combat attrition tests cause models to flee, even if the unit is over half strength. This would bring this trait more inline with the 9th moral system and really make it a Shatterer of Wills rather than just a bit of a tickler. 

Lastly we have a trait that I think is really good, probably too good and I expect that we will see some kind of nerf to it. Full Payload is taken in pretty much all lists, usually in the form of a Full Payload Manticore or two. I'm not sure how they will nerf this trait, as it just maximises the damage characteristics of the weapon, so without a full rewording there isn't much they can do. One thing I guess they can do is to restrict each ace trait to only allowing each trait to be used once per army. This mean that you couldn't take 2 full payload manticores in the army. I real do expect this to get nerfed, hopefully it won't be to bad.

As for the super-heavy aces, I think these three are all spot on. None of them really need any work, the only one that I might change would be inspiring might, to enable combat attrition tests only on 1's regardless of casualties. 

So, overall a few things that I think need changing for the next codex but on the whole, not a bad lot of traits. Next up we'll have a look at relics, or heirlooms, and psychic powers. 

The new kill team, not the same as the old.

 

So, I've been waiting a while to post this up, waiting until we had some more information through and a better idea of the new game. While we still don't know all the ins and outs of the new game, we do now have a better idea of how it all will work and so far, I like it.

There is a big fundamental change to the game, pretty much everything about it is changing and while I did t have an issue with most of the old rules, there were certainly some aspects that really didn't work and some that just made the game clunky to play. I had always thought that the next edition of kill team would clear these rules up but I didn't imagine that they would alter everything. 

Let's have a look through what we do know so far, as we have had quite a bit of information from the Warhammer Community pages. 

The first thing we learnt was that the box would contain new guard and Ork models, in the form of DKoK and Commandos, plus we learnt, though some observation of the box contents, that we weren't going to be measuring in inches any more. The first of these reveals seemed to get the community really hyped up but the second seemed to annoy quite a few people. Personally I think it's all a good step in the right direction and had me hooked straight from the off. 

The next post we got listed the 5 major changes to kill team and while this did give us some new information, there was not really any solid facts in there. We did learn that the new rules were nothing like 40k proper, which annoyed some more people, and that these would include a proper alternative activation system, as opposed to the semi-alternative system we currently have. We also learnt that we were getting all new data cards for units, which annoyed some more people. We also learnt some information about the Octarius setting, which most people don't seem to care about. Lastly we learnt that these models would be proper MPPK, or multipart plastic kits and not mono or limited pose models, which is great, especially after all the mono-pose marines.

All in all, there are some really good bits to this reveal. The new system sounds good, as it is a proper skirmish game, rather than a small version of 40k and reducing the dice rolling is always going to be a good thing. Alternative activations is also good, meaning there will never be any dull  moments waiting around. The alternative activation system is one of the things that has always drawn me to the likes of Bolt Action. I'm really intrigued by the new data card system and how it's all going to work when picking a full roster of troops. The data cards themselves seem pretty straightforward and easy to use,which is a change from previously, when things could get a little complicated.

The next Warhammer Community article we got went into more detail on the new data cards, giving us lots of information on what the new symbols and stats mean. We'll start with the simple bit, the new measuring symbols. This again, has been causing quite a stir in some parts of the community but it's just replacing actual numbers with symbols and is really easy to use. There are plenty of combat gauges out there which you can use instead of the GW ones. As for the data cards, we have learnt that there are 6 basic stats, Movement, Action Point Limit, GA, Defense, Save and Wounds. We know what most of these mean, the only ones that we don't really know about is GA. There are several thoughts on what it is but we don't know for sure yet. Having these limited few stats again means that things will be quicker and easier in game. Talking of stats, two stats that we are use to being set in stone, WS and BS, are changeable. This is a good move, meaning, weapons like snipers will have a better chance of hitting than a lasgun. Again everything shown in this post is encouraging, all apart from one thing. Right at the bottom of the article it explains the 4 symbols that can be found on the cards, labelling them as Combat, Staunch, Marksman and Scout, but also saying that these are for narrative play only. From this we can infer that there will.not be specialist like in the last game but any specialization we get will be a lot more focused and be done through individual data cards. I.e. we'll not be able to make anyone with any weapon a combat specialist but will have a combat specialist data card with restricted weapon options. Again, I think that this is a better system, as it means that specialist will be more important and well, more specialised.

The last article we had on Warhammer Community gave us an insight into how combat will work and some extras for movement. I'll start with the movement, even though it's at the bottom of the article. It looks like moving over an obstacles will reduce movement by a set figure, regardless of actual size. It seems that an obstacle will reduce movement by a 2" or a circle full stop, so no more measuring up and down or width, nice simple and easy. As for combat, it has, like everything else, been made a lot simpler. The fighters all roll their dice and then either cancel each other out or inflict damage, depending upon what you want to achieve. We don't know full stats for all the models yet, but it looks like another good move. There are just a couple of questions that I would like answering, like what happens when you have multiple models in combat, do they all roll off at the same time or separately? Also do you keep going until a model suffers enough damage to kill it, or until all the dice are used up? I mean a marine with a powerfist will be able to splat a guardsman in one hit, but if it has 2 hit Vs a guardsman's 3, could the guardsman just take the hit knowing he can put damage on the marine, or does he just die and that's the end of it?

The last thing to mention from last week's reveals is the new website. While this doesn't tell us a lot of information, there are a couple of bits that I want to point out, all to do with the way the factions are laid out. According to the website, there are now 21 factions, none of which are the special team from before, i.e. starstriders or Geller pox. I had none of the special teams, so I'm not bothered, no, what really interested me was the names of some of these factions and also the composition of the teams. To start with deathwatch are now part of Marines and not separate as before. Admech are not AdMech but Forge World, sisters are Ecclesiarchy and the golden boys are now part of Talons of the Emperor along side Sisters of Silence. It's a bit of a shake up of the common names but probably more accurate depending upon what units are in each faction. Likewise, CSM are now Traitor Space Marines, Eldar are now Craftworlds,  Quin's are now just called Troupes and dark Eldar are commorrites. Then for the rest of the Xenos races we have Green skins, Tomb world's, Hunter Cadre and Cadre mercenaries for Orks, Necrons, Tau and Kroot. Lastly we have Hive Fleets and Brood Covens for Tyranids and Genestealer Cults. Now a few of these are fairly obvious but the change in me does lead to questions. A couple that give me hope for future releases are Cadre Mercenaries, which at the moment is just Kroot but I guess could include all Tau allied races at some point. The others that interest me are Ecclesiarchy and Hunter Cadre. This is because they are very different from their "parent" terms, Ecclesiarchy is a lot more that just sisters and Hunter Cadre is a lot more specific that Tau. 

The other two entries that are interesting are the Veteran guard and Commandos. These are the starter box teams but the question is, will they be a full teams of just set teams as per the box. Either way, i think I'll be picking up some other units to build up veterans. 

Well, as an initial look in to the new kill team, I am very excited by it and will most likely get the new box set. Hopefully with the new rules, a few more people might want to get in on the kill team action!