Friday 13 October 2017

Codex: Astra Militarum - First Thought



So, I received my codex on Monday and I have had a good look through. Firstly, I think the codex is excellent, I really like the way it is laid out, especially all the unit entries. Its something that I have always thought was odd about the Index, why was everything all over the place. I haven't read through all the fluff yet, there is a lot of it. What I have read, its really good.

Now, I know that there have been a number of points reductions and some other rules alterations but I will go into them in more detail when I go through the various entries over the next few posts. What I will go into quickly is the changes that have jumped out at me as I went through the book. Now these are in no particular order, just as I noticed as I jumped around the book.

First up, is the alteration to power weapons. Now, this is annoying as I had armed a few of my models with power mauls, which are really my weapon of choice for guard characters. What am I going on about? Well, power axes and power mauls are no longer part of the Melee weapons list. I remember a time when it was pretty much a must have to arm your Sgts with power axes. Personally, I've always preferred the power maul for the extra strength, up to strength 5, meaning its a 3+ to wound marines, which is always useful. Alas, you can no longer take either an axe or maul, only fists and swords. I'm not sure why they have been removed, I would have at least though that the mauls would have remained, but then I guess that they don't actually do a power maul model. Oh well, power swords it is then.

Tempestor Primes, Sword on the left and Maul on the right.

One other thing I noticed on the war gear list was the vehicle list, a new addition and the stand out item on the list was the Track Guards. This means that even when you take damage, your movement characteristics don't degrade as well, just your ballistic skill. This is great, unless your taking the Valhallan doctrine, then its useless. This is definatly something I will be looking at taking on a couple of vehicles.

Next up, I checked out a couple of units. The first one I had to check out was the Ogryrn Bodyguard. Now this is a unit that I am really interested in adding to my army list, well, actually I am thinking of adding a couple. I was planning to add just the Bullgryn variants, but then I noticed that they have changed the profile for the ripper gun. I was quite excited by the fact that it now has a melee profile. Its not the best weapons profile but it does have a -1 ap which is always useful. However, as good as this is, the bodyguard come with a Huge Knife, which is still -1 ap but is 2 damage, which is great. So, the Ripper armed Ogryn bodyguard with Huge Knife is actually not a bad option. I'll have to check, but if you can take multiple bodyguards for each character, then one shooty one and one with maul and shield would fit the bill perfectly. I think that a box of Ogryns are definitely on the Christmas list.

The next unit to mention is not one that's in the codex. Rough Riders. These have been something that I wanted to get for a while but now, they no longer exist and so they will never form part of the Hrossey Yeomanry. Its a shame, I was really hoping that they would get some buffs in this codex and be reinvigorated for the new edition.

Now comes the Conscripts and there well published alterations. There isn't a lot to say here, yes they have been hit a bit, but is it good enough? I don't know and I don't really care, I don't run conscripts or play in high level tournaments. I can see why people don't like them but we'll see what the changes actually do to there effectiveness on the table.

One thing that I didn't notice, but was brought to my attention on the Xeno Vids YouTube channel. He was putting together a list from the new codex and he mentioned Valkyries and the MRP's being Assault D6. Assault? Now that was interesting, as they were heavy. This now means that they don't suffer a negative hit modifier when they move, which I very useful. Hitting on a 5 rather than a 4 makes quite a difference. This means that they will definitely a be featuring on the table top during my games. A good change as far as i'm concerned.

Vendetta and Valkyrie (or is that two Valkyries now?)

The one thing that i'm not happy about is that there is still no choice for Carapace armour. I always took this option on my command squads and on my veterans, as that change to a 4+ save made a huge difference and still would. Why it has been removed, I'm not sure, as it doesn't require any extra models or options. Its a shame as it was a good option. The other thing I don't understand, why have they removed the options for veterans? I didn't think that these were overpowered or anything and they added a flavour to the unit. Ok so the doctrines and stratagems now do some of this, but the options added something to the individual units.

Lastly, Defenders of Humanity, or objective secured as it was known before. This was not unexpected and wasn't what caught my eye, all troops in all detachments as objective secured, but in a Spearhead detachment, Leman Russ tanks are also a objective secured. This is great, as it means that you can still run a full armoured company and have objective secured.

These are just my initial thoughts and i'm going to go through all the entries over the next couple weeks, so will be in more detail than others and I may split up some of the various battlefield roles in to multiply posts, as some of them are quite big. I'll look into any changes that may have occurred between the index entries and the codex entries and give you thoughts on the units.


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