Today we will be looking at the Warlord Traits, starting with the generic traits, which are open to all and then going on to the Regimental specific warlord traits. While there are quite a few traits to choose from some of them are a more useful then others.
Grand Strategist
This trait has two parts to it. the first part gives you a single re-roll per battle, that can be spent on either a re-roll to hit, to wound or a save. The second part gives you the ability to roll for every command point you spend and on a 5+ that command point is refunded. This is a good trait, as you are effectively getting an extra command point with your re-roll and also the opportunity to get cp's back after spending them. Combine this with the Aquila relic and you could be getting cp's back all over the place. While this is a good trait, its not the best.
Old Grudges
I'm not sure about this trait yet, it has the potential to be very good, but also to be very short lived. The trait give you the option to pick an enemy unit at the start of the battle and then for the rest of the game you get to re-roll wounds against them for any unit within range of your warlord. Now, this can be powerful, as it gives you re-rolls, which are always useful and combined with order has the potential to really pile on the damage, however, if you take out the unit in the first round of combat, then its no longer applicable for the rest of the game. So do you pick a really tough unit that will hang around all game and potentially soak up all your fire power for nothing, or do you pick a weak unit in order to get the maximum effect out of it, even if its only in the short term? It will depend on what your facing, but I'd probably go with the latter and make the most of it while I know my warlord is still around. A trait to consider, but I think there are better ones.
Implacable determination
This is not one of the better ones however, at least not for me. This is mainly because why is your warlord advancing up the table? If he is, then he need to be in a transport, which wont be effected by this trait. If your commander is a LRBT commander then this won't be much use either, as you'll be wanting to cruise around at half speed,along the most of those 3+ to hit rolls with grinding advance. The only time i can see this being useful is if you need to get out of trouble fast, apart from that i don't see much use for this trait.
Draconian discipline
Now we get in to the good traits, at least in my opinion anyway. This is a name that will be recognised by many long time guard players and has remained the same in idea even if the details have changed. This time around it gets you a re-roll to your moral if your within 6 inches of the warlord. Re-roll moral is a great bonus for guard infantry units. With the general low moral, any help is good and with the changes to commissars, this trait is now even better. This will benefit gun line armies more than most others, as there will be more units within the 6 inch bubble than other style of armies. There are various other ways of getting around moral these days, from stratagems to doctrines, but this is still one of the more reliable ones and doesn't use up any CP's either. If your running something like valhallan's or Mordians, then this may not be the best trait as they have some built-in resilience anyway, but for Cadian, Vostroyan and Armageddon units, this could be useful. In the end it's an old trait but it's still a good one.
Bellowing Voice
This is another good trait but it is quite limited in its application. The trait adds 3 inches to the abilities of your warlord. This means that abilities such as Voice of Command, Aura of Discipline, Tank Orders and Summary Execution will all get a bonus to there range, as will, Its for you own good. This is why I say that it is quite limited, as it only effects a small number of abilities and with things like VoC, the range can be extended very easily with Vox Casters, and Summary Execution now only has a very limited application anyway, so will not benefit very much from the extra 3 inches. In general though, most of the time you will be seeing the benefit to the VoC ability and Tank Orders, as your warlord will most likely be a Commander, either of the Company or Tank variety. However, if you did decide to use a Lord Commissar, then his abilities would be increased, and would enable you to cover a greater area with his aura abilities, although, I'm less sure about this due to the changes to Summary Execution. I would tend to go with this for gun line armies, as it enables you to cover a greater area with VoC than normal, meaning that you could save a few points here and there on Vox Casters, although this wont affect the Vox Caster rules, as they are linked to the Vox and not the Officer. With Tank Commanders the trait is even better, as it means that you can spread your tanks out a bit more, reducing the chances of multi-charges and also opening up better cover and LoS options for the various tanks, without having to sacrifice your orders. In my opinion, this is a trait best suited to the Tank Commander, but is also very useful on a Company Commander.
Master of Command
This is probably my choice for the traits. Yes, most of the time your warlord will already have the VoC ability, but occasionally your warlord wont. If you decided to take Commissar Yarrick as your warlord, then you have to take this trait for him, giving him the ability to issue an order. Now, the ability to issue an extra order a turn is not something to turn down, as the guard really do live and die by the issuing of orders. Being able to issue an extra order means that you can effectively save points in both an armoured list and also a infantry list, as a Tank Commander could issue two orders per turn and a Company Commander 3. Combined with some of the relics this could lead to a very powerful command structure, with the ability to issue orders all over the place. It should also be noted that with this trait a Tempestor Prime gets to issue two orders without the need to take the Command Rod upgrade and thus retain his pistol, again combine this with the MT relic and you can issue even more orders. Of the main traits, this is usually my first choice for my warlord, as it is a boost to there command abilities.
Alongside the six standard traits are Regiment specific traits, which can only be taken by characters with the same regiment keyword. Its also worth pointing out that if a named character has a specific keyword then it must take the regimental command trait, so Creed must take the Cadian trait and Straken must take the Catachan Trait.
Cadian - Superior tactical training
The Cadians get one of the best warlord traits in the book as far a I can see. This is because when you order a unit, on a dice roll of 4+ another unit within 6 inches of the warlord also get to take advantage of that same order. For infantry this means that if you use a vox caster to issue order to units further away, you have a 50/50 chance of one of the closer units getting to follow the order as well. This means that there is the chance to issue up to 4 orders. This is a great buff to the surrounding troops and as most of the time you are going to be sitting still in a gun line with the Cadians, to make the most of there Doctrine, you are going to have plenty of choices for issuing order. Knight Commander Pask and also Lord Castellan Creed both have to take this trait as they are Cadian Characters. being forced to take this trait is not a issue for either of these characters, as the trait enhances there abilities. If you are taking Creed as your warlord, then I would suggest taking Colour Sergeant Kell, giving Creed an extra order, giving him the potential to issue 8 orders a turn! Chances are you'll get 6 off, but this is still a big buff for the troops around him. If your taking a Cadian army, then I would definitely look at taking this trait.
Catachan - Leading from the front
This trait continues the theory that Catachans are supposed to be a close combat orientated army, as it grants your warlord a 6 inch Heroic Intervention, rather than the standard 3 inches, and in addition, if the warlord charges, was charged or makes an Heroic Intervention, he gets a re-roll to hit in combat. This is a difficult trait to really classify, as most of the time I would not recommend getting in to combat with any guardsmen, let alone a warlord, but in order to make the most of the Catachans doctrines then you need to get in to combat, or more specifically, you need to charge in to combat, which I still think is a bad idea. As was mentioned above, if you want to take Straken as your warlord then you have to take this trait. This would mean that he would be getting re-rolls to hit and to wound in combat against monsters. To be honest, if I was taking Straken, I would not be taking him as my warlord, because as much as I like Straken and his abilities would be good, he is still a squishy T4 human. If you take a Company commander as your warlord, I would look towards the generic traits.
Valhallan - Tenacious
This is one of the better regimental warlord traits, granting the warlord a 5+ "feel no pain" roll, which turns in to a 6+ if your warlord is a vehicle. In modern, 8th edition game terms, then this means that for every wound that the warlord suffers, he gets to ignore it on a 5+, or 6+ as a vehicle, meaning that he becomes that little bit more resilient. While this trait doesn't effect any of the units around the warlord, it should mean that he will be around that little bit longer and as such be able to continue to issue orders to the surrounding units, buffing them for more turns. I would definitely consider this trait, however, I would also look at some of the general traits, as I think that under many circumstances the other traits could be better.
Vostroyan - Honoured duellist
This trait is focused towards the combat and as such instantly drops this down the list of useful traits for me. The trait itself grants re-rolls to hit and wound when in combat and as such this is one of the few occasions that I might recommend taking a relic power sword on a character. The only downside is that this trait does force you to charge rather than be charged, as its likely that most of the time you will not survive to fight back if your charged, useless its by some Tau fire warriors. I would not take this trait as it does nothing for any of the units around the warlord and there are very few occasion that I would be looking at throwing my warlord in to combat to take advantage of this trait. Personally I would take one of the other generic traits.
Armageddon - Ex-gang leader
Another combat orientated warlord trait, this time however you gain +1 attack and also +1 to wound for your warlord. Again this is probably the only other occasion I would suggest taking a relic power sword, as with the extra attack and the +1 to wound means that you have a good chance of doing damage. Again, the only downside is that you need to make sure you actually get to attack, so charging is really the best option and as I've said quite a few times, I really don't think that charging your warlord in to combat is a good idea. I would take one of the generic traits for my Armageddon Warlord, either Master of Command or Draconian Discipline.
Tallarn - Swift attacker
Now, the Tallarn have got some really good stuff in the codex but the trait is not quite so good. The Tallarn warlord traits grants units within 6 inches of your warlord the ability to charge after falling back. This is not a great trait, it will have its uses but overall, there are very few occasions that I can think of where you will be wanting to charge a unit after they have fallen back from combat. Granted, with the application of various orders, you could fall back, fire and then charge again, but I really don't think that this is a good use of guardsmen most of the time. This also means that your warlord is going to be very close to the enemy, which would probably be combat orientated unit and as such a bad place for your warlord to be. If something drops in to your deployment zone and needs to be taken out, then this trait could be useful, but on the whole, I would be looking at one of the other traits.
Militarum Tempestus - Faithful servant of the throne
This is a bit of a hit or miss command. While the Scions themselves are proving to be a very versatile and powerful force on the table top, they have got the poor end of the stick with most of the other bits in the codex and the trait is no different. Being able to deny a psychic power a turn is not a bad trait, it is just not the best. If your facing something like an Eldar or Tyranid army, then there is little point in trying to deny one power, then if your fighting Tau, well, then its pointless. Most times denying a single power is not going to be very useful. I would be far more tempted to take the Master of Command trait and get the second order. Overall, there are a lot better options for your MT warlord trait.
Mordian - Iron discipline
Going along with the fluff of the Mordians, as staunch disciplinarians, this trait means than if any unit fails its moral within 6 inches of the warlord, then they have a 50/50 chance of not fleeing, with each model getting a dice roll and on a 4+, that model doesn't flee. Combined with the Doctrine's +1 to leadership, this means that there is a good chance that even if you do fail a moral test, you models may not flee at all. This is always good, as loosing models to moral is never a good thing. This trait will be best in a gun line army, where models tend to be bunched up more, as thus there will be more units within the 6 inches that will benefit from the trait. If you are running a Mordian list, then I think that this is a great trait to have and I think it would be a tough choice between taking this trait and Mater of Command. I think that this trait will also go well with the Laurels of Command Relic.
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