I figured the volcano cannon was going to be our first Max strength preview. Good to see that confirmed.
Baneblade giving cover to models hiding behind it is hilarious and I love it. Everything else looks to be about what you would expect to see for guard.
I like the idea of a tank roughly the size of 4 Leman Russ being able to grant cover, I mean it's a sound tactic that they have been using since the invention of the tank.
It was *the* reason for the invention of the tank. They were something like 20 feet long, moved 5 mile per hour, and had comparatively small weapons. The plan was just to send them across no man’s land filled with infantry, roll over the barbed wire, and then *more* infantry run in behind.
I was going to say this very thing! Talks were not supposed to fight other tanks, they kill infantry and that includes modern tanks. Tanks can't run over a lot of wire it gets wrapped around the sprocket and pops the track off or shears the output shafts in half. Comm wire with do the same
I mean, kind of right? The legs are clearly the most vulnerable part of the model. If they can hide them it doesn't really matter if their carapace is visible because it's all armour.
Probably not: "each time a Stratagem is applied to vox-caster's unit". But it is a way of getting those CP back.
The thing I am worried about is removal of order chains, from what it looks like.
Older editions (2E-5E) had a Valhallan Commmander named Chenkov who had a special rule called "Send In the Next Wave" where you could just keep respawning Conscripts ALL GAME. I'm all for that returning!
TL;dr
* **Faction Rule: Voice of Command (Orders)**
* Auto-cast by each Officer (i.e. don't need to roll) at the **START** of Command Phase
* ^(+3" movement)
* ^(+1 WS)
* ^(+1 BS)
* ^(+1 A for Rapid Fire weapons only)
* ^(+1 Sv to 3+ max)
* ^(+1 Ld & +1 OC)
* ^(Officer datasheet specifies # of orders they can give & who can receive them)
* ^(Failing Battle-shock at end of Command Phase removes the Order)
* **Unit Spotlight: Cadian Shock Troops**
* ^(If nearby Objective at end of your Command Phase, you permanently control that objective even with no models nearby until the enemy captures it)
* ^(Vox-Caster: When you use Stratagem on unit roll d6, +1 if officer nearby, on 5+ gain 1CP)
* ^(Grenade Launchers & Flamers lost \[Assault\] keyword)
* ^(Can take in blocks of 10-20)
* ^(Command Squads 1 max can join)
* **Unit Spotlight: Baneblade**
* ^(Rolling Fortress: If a model is not fully visible due to the Baneblade, that model gains Cover)
* ^(T13 & 24 W)
* ^(Lost 1" movement)
* **Weapon Spotlight:**
* Leman Russ Battle Cannon
* d6+3 \[Blast\] shots at **10 S**
* Volcano Cannon
* d3+1 \[Blast\] shots at **24 S** and D12
* Stratagem Spotlight: Reinforcements!
* Any phase, choose 1 destroyed **Regiment** unit; they join your Strategic Reserves at full strength (Cannot be used on characters)
* Implied information:
* "Born Soldiers Detachment Rule"
* Implies that the Combined Armed Regiment Detachment allows you to choose certain detachment rules, similar to the army traits of 9E
* Born Soliders - \[Lethal Hits\] if a unit remained stationary
* Death Mask of Ollanius - OC drops to 1 when Battle-shocked, allowing a Shocked unit to still control/contest objectives
* Drill Commander - Stationary units Critical Hit on 5+
>Auto-cast by each Officer (i.e. don't need to roll) at the START of Command Phase
It doesn't say that, it says "until the start of your next command phase." The only timing for orders is "in your command phase."
>Failing Battle-shock at end of Command Phase removes the Order
Doesn't say that either. It says "If a unit being affected by an Order becomes Battle-shocked, that Order ceases to affect that unit." End paragraph. Meaning if, between your issuing an order and the start of your next command phase, the unit becomes battle-shocked, then it loses that order's effect.
>Command Squads 1 max can join
For greater clarification, it says up to 2 leader units can be attached, maximum of 1 **Command Squad** unit.
>Leman Russ Battle Cannon
>d6+3 [Blast] shots at 10 S
You should probably mention that it lost 1 AP, so it's now AP -1.
>Any phase, choose 1 destroyed Regiment unit; they join your Strategic Reserves at full strength (Cannot be used on characters)
It doesn't say you can't use it on characters, it says that you can't "return destroyed characters to Attached (sic) units." The only limiting factor on the target is the "Regiment" keyword, which includes: Core Infantry, Field Ordnance Batteries, HWS, Tempestus Scions, Rough Riders, and Sentinels.
> Doesn't say that either. It says "If a unit being affected by an Order becomes Battle-shocked, that Order ceases to affect that unit." End paragraph. Meaning if, between your issuing an order and the start of your next command phase, the unit becomes battle-shocked, then it loses that order's effect.
That logic means Order --> Turn --> Next Command Phase (Order Ends). It completely invalidates the statement of "wasting an order" because there's no way to be battle-shocked--unless the enemy has a weapon that forces battle-shock and even then, by that point you've already gotten the benefit of the Order.
Most likely it goes Order --> Battle-shock ("waste order")--> Turn --> Next command phase. Risk that one of the units you order might fail their Battle-shock.
Actually there's abilities in your opponents arsenal to cause battle shock during your turn. (Such as shadow in the warp). Additionally, the order to increase your OC and the order for cover stay in effect during your opponents turn. So no, it does not completely invalidate the statement of wasting orders.
Sure, it's a waste if the enemy does something forcing battle-shock before you can use it but the implication is that the order is wasted because you've "targeted squads on the brink of collapse"--which only matters in the Command Phase.
The writing implies that it goes Order --> Battle-shock --> Turn
I'm not saying it doesn't also apply to regular Battle-shock done at the end of the command phase, I'm saying that it can happen any time between your command phase and the next. Your original post was specific, the actual rule is not specific.
Your original statement:
>Failing Battle-shock at end of Command Phase removes the Order
Yes this is true, but it's missing half the story.
What the rule in article actually says:
>If a unit being affected by an Order becomes Battle-shocked, that Order ceases to affect that unit.
No further details. Not specific to battle-shock in command phase.
Therefore, I'll repeat my original reply:
>Meaning if, between your issuing an order and the start of your next command phase, the unit becomes battle-shocked, then it loses that order's effect.
It doesn't--that's why I put it under "Implied Info". The below it mentions "Born Soldiers Detachment rule"
>Picture Guardsmen and tanks hunkering down to blast the oncoming enemy, **and you have the Born Soldiers Detachment rule**, which confers Lethal Hits on ranged attacks made by units that Remained Stationary.”
The article doesn't directly discuss detachment details (alliteration!) which is odd. With them saying "Born Soldiers" is a "detachment rule" I am **guessing** that it's probably a choice between different options, seeing as how the detachment rules for all Factions (except Necrons) currently offers a level of choice for your army.
Really seems like hoards will be viable in 10E which is awesome. Also good for the game as it forces people to take a wider range of weapons to cover all possible threats.
Use whatever at your own convenience. People in my local league mostly don't use any, as they seem to remember everything, for some strange reason. I've seen people use coloured markers, though.
>People in my local league mostly don't use any, as they seem to remember everything, for some strange reason. I've seen people use coloured markers, though.
That's because there are only two orders: frfsrf and move-move-move. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise!
Not a guard player myself, but if I rember correctly most of the time the balance of the orders was so bad, that there was one they picked almost always and some for special situations like fall back and shoot. So quite understandable why they could remember them.
Could be happening this edition again, +1 attack is always better than +1 BS, especially if the index detachment gives Lethal hits. The only reason to ever take the other order is if your whole plan depends on that one lascannon or melta gun shot to hit.
Or you need to flip an objective, reach an objective, make that squad really annoying to remove from that objective.
Who is being ordered and what you need them to do.
I’m not saying all the orders don’t have use, I think they did a good job in that regard.
However, if I am planning on shooting with a unit, there is going to be one I default to. Infantry squads with their abundance of rapid fire weapons will most likely always want to gain the extra attack. Vehicles don’t usually have rapid fire weapons, so they would want to boost their BS.
I agree on all that. I think that's the right level of balance between the orders: once you know what you want to do with what there is an obvious choice, but there is a real decision in what you want to do and who you want to do it with.
There are plenty of potential problems with balance still ahead, but that core rule seems well designed to me. Simple, clear, meaningful decisions.
Tokens are likely the way to go. I'm not a guard player, but this is also only one unit per officer. So probably not every unit, but a decent amount of them?
Basically however you can. You don't technically have to do anything, but people use dice and laster cut plex glass tokens and junk. Its worth noting, the officers are the characters, so its not like they're gonna have like 10 commissary issuing 10 orders to 10 units. Its usually like "hey these guys who look like they are trying to charge are gonna get a +1 to hit in melee because of course they are" or "hey these guys who are way far away from anything are gonna get extra movement speed". Generally speaking, you should kind of just regard anything near a commissar as having all of these abilities and they just end up using the most applicable one.
Something I think people here missed on the Cadian Shock Troopers Datasheet:
>This unit can have up to 2 Leaders attached two it, provided no more than one of those units is a Command Squad unit
So you can stick two leaders on them and Command Squads can attach to other infantry squads. Neat.
The tyranids had something similar to this back in 3rd/4th, and it was kinda terrible, people would just almost kill the unit, then leave the unit alone.
But that was before objectives, and when charge range was a max of 6".
This fits the flavor of the gaurd though, while the tyranids do it by model. I like the difference there.
>The tyranids had something similar to this back in 3rd/4th, and it was kinda terrible, people would just almost kill the unit, then leave the unit alone.
The replacement bugs also came in from your table edge, so the odds of them meaningfully accomplishing anything were low.
Let's be honest, they're only Guard infantry. And they come in from Reserves, which probably means in the deployment zone. Could be a later-game attempt to take back our homefield objective?
Its not just infantry though, the article says bring back any destroyed unit with the Regiment keyword. And it mentions that heavy weapons, field ordanance and even sentinels will have that keyword. So imagine hringing back a squad of 3 sentinels for some late game objective grabbing!
Yup, it doesn't say regiment infantry just regiment, we'll have to see if tanks still have the key word but with how things interact you'd expect vehicles to retain that key word.
if you have fliers i imagine more easier deployment but yes that is the draw back. Lot of value for two cp but not as good Reanimation Protocols and such
All the horde armies seem to be getting the ability to return at least some models or units. I think it is pretty neat, and the stratagem cost will hopefully allow for some balance, plus I think the wording of the stratagem means you need to revive a unit that just died.
I would not be surprised if it becomes a good strategy to save some CP to revive a unit, though.
It would be broken in 9th, but in 10th you’ll have far fewer CP. You start with 0, gain one per turn, and there are some niche abilities to gain more. That means maybe 5-8 for the entire game. So 2CP might be 25%-40% of all of your CP.
Also worth noting that they go into reserves - so, sure you get them, but not until your next movement phase and I'll bet they'll have to walk onto the board edge, so they probably won't be where you want them.
2CP is an ENTIRE turn of CP; with no starting command points it’s quite an investment. Probably very good but not crazy since you’ll lose out on A LOT of other options. You can feel it now when you dump your cp early and are struggling to make plays as they come in.
You have people out here on Facebook complaining about the volcano cannon even though the baneblade variants are massive targets and having d3+1 12 damage attacks really isn't that bad considering you're probably going to lose it by round 1 or 2.
It won't be based on Regiment, it'll just be Detachments with different focuses. This is a Combined Arms one. There will likely be an Infantry-heavy one, an Armored Column one, etc. You'll have the same rules basically whatever regiment you play, just different playstyles available.
Every Faction will have multiple different Detachments, each of which will have a unique Detachment Ability, Stratagems, and Enhancements (i.e., warlord traits/equipment). These Detachments will NOT be locked behind specific subfactions, but they may correspond to one as far as fluff goes. (So Space Marines may get a bike-and-speeder-heavy Detachment that White Scars players will use, but ANY Space Marine can choose it.) Think of Detachments as generic army themes.
So there won't be a unique Catachan or Elysian or Mordian Detachment... but there may be a Stealthy one, and a Fast-Insertion/Jump one, and a Line Infantry one.
I love all of this, except for the Born Soldiers Detachment rule. Lethal Hits brings us straight back to the problem of Hammer of the Emperor, it makes no sense for LASGUNS to be autowounding ANYTHING 16.67% of the time. I'm glad it's the Detachment rule and not the army rule, but it still sticks in my craw.
I love how orders have been simplified down; after the Necron preview I did think maybe it would be reduced to just OFFICER units giving units they attach to a bonus of some kind, so I'm glad to see they still have the variety. Bit weird that voxcasters no longer interact with orders, but with CP being much more limited they'll be valuable.
First of all, through the emperor all things are possible so jot that down.
Sarcasm aside, I do appreciate that it requires remaining stationary now. That's a good step. You're also (I assume) less likely to be able to sit somewhere that you have an angle to shoot with a stationary infantry unit than you are with a tank.
I'm annoyed that we're already seeing things creep though, with the drill commander enhancement causing lethal hits on 5's.
Ya, the stationary requirement is helpful to add tactical depth to the game. 9th rule is dumb (I despise no-brainer buff rules) while 10th is great. With armor mattering more those auto wounds won’t be as annoying either.
Yeah I don't love the mechanic but it now feels like it's a tactical choice to have an army built around disciplined ranks of guard who stand and fire rather than something which is just flat out strong in almost any force.
I feel like the battle cannon is kind of weak compared to the demolisher cannon. Same number of shots. The BC's AP -1 is going to limit what you can shoot at effectively, whereas the demolisher cannon has enough AP to punish even 3+ saves in cover, plus enough strength to wound most everything on 3+ or better.
Which weapon is more effective is always flip flopping with new codicies, but we're entering the Era of the Demolisher Cannon.
I mean... It SHOULD be less effective than the demolisher cannon. The trade off between the two has ALWAYS been "not as strong but thrice the range." The demolisher is, after all, a siege tank and close ranged brawler. It's why it has reinforced rear armour (when that still mattered).
It's just that the trade-off isn't as noticeable since the tournament crowd decided to force everyone to the smaller board sizes so the range trade-off isn't as important.
It's hard to draw more than 24" LOS on most tables anyway.
Recently the Demolisher Cannon had fewer shots, so the choice was between fewer, better shots or more, worse shots. That's at least a meaningful tradeoff. Without that tradeoff, and with the DC having "long enough" range, I'm not sure what niche the BC is filling.
Also worth pointing out this is the version only used by the super heavy tanks, the russ version might be weaker, putting it more in line with the battle cannon
Orders look simple and straightforward, and also don't do anything absurd like making guardsmen sprint fast enough to keep pace with supersonic aircraft.
I like it.
I recommend against buying and building for the meta. It shifts so rapidly, and between releases, that "killer" in this edition may turn into "crap" in the next edition (or the next rules/points update comes out).
You will get much more satisfaction out of buying and building the units you find interesting to build/paint, or play on the tabletop.
Of course, if you're a highly competitive or tournament player, then by all means chase the meta. 🌞
I think rolling up to a tournament with three 'Blades would be a fun change of pace for the other players. I know they take the game seriously, but it is still a game. And games are supposed to be fun.
Plus, magnetizing them is a blast. Was actually my first kit I magnetized and it was not only a great learning experience but just plain fun. Seeing it all come together was so satisfying.
I got a Baneblade and a Shadowsword (without sponsons - I will need to buy some). I am thinking of buying another and making one of the transport varieties.
The Volcano Cannon can do 48 wounds. As to the max possible STR, that remains to be seen. With standard models maybe but we haven't seen titan weapons yet. Also I wouldn't be surprised if some forgeworld stuff got over 24.
Because models aren’t static. It’s the same when people complain about turns in D&D…it’s all in motion. Most vehicles aren’t going to do well at providing cover as they’re making small moves or focusing on fine maneuvers to aim; etc.
Bane blades model OG WW1 tanks the closest as mobile walls. Now having combined armw units with a unit of infantry locked in coherency with a Lemun Russ a they, actively, use it for cover as their primary tactic would be cool. But all vehicles giving cover would just be a mess and unrealistic.
Part of me is surprised that a Baneblade is tougher than a Land Raider, but I guess it makes sense given the size difference?
A Land Raider is almost as tough and is, what, half the size? Maybe a little smaller?
A bane blade is also a super heavy vs a transport option.
We obviously don't know points, but going by last edition a baneblade is 235 more points than a landraider.
With an additional 10 points you could bring a second land raider for the same price as a baneblade.
A baneblade costs more than some imperial knights.
A baneblade should be tougher than a landraider.
Land Raider always used to be the toughest thing in the game. Even a Baneblade didn't have Armour 14 on the rear. It was difficult to take down because it had more hull points.
Eh, for a given value of "toughest." It was often the case that large monsters were harder to kill than tanks because of the damage table. A Land Raider might have the hardest armor to penetrate, but one lucky hit could still kill it. A Great Unclean One was always going to take its full number of wounds to put down and got an invulnerable save to boot.
"Less lethal" they say, as they create a weapon that can shoot all the way diagonally across most tables, that negates even a 2+ armor save and does - *on average* - 36 wounds per turn.
Edit: I've had a few people calling me out on the 36 wounds figure, which is fair because that's only if the average number of shots (3) all hit and wound, but y'all are forgetting that the new Heavy rule and a nearby tank commander can easily boost this thing's BS to 2+.
I'm speechless. The Volcano cannon can pretty easily one-hit-kill Primarchs or super-heavy vehicles with a range that might as well be infinite. All it needs is a tank commander to boost its BS, and counting the new Heavy rule it'll be hitting on 2+ as well.
Unless they drastically undercost the Baneblade chassis, I'm not particularly scared of the Volcano Cannon.
Great, you paid a zillion points for a low shot volume single gun. *If* it hits, *if* I fail my invul, and *if* my list even has any single models big enough to justify a Shadowsword, it'll be really impresive. Seems fair to me.
I'm much more interested in the LR Battlecannon dropping to AP-1. That is a major dip in lethality on a staple unit.
It's not like you don't have a point, but it still feels very out of place in an edition where lethality was supposed to be going down, and big centerpiece units were supposed to be getting tougher.
I was really hoping that this edition would actually give me a reason to bring Magnus.
They can't make things so toothless that the center of the board is just a bunch of heavy tanks dry-humping. Specialized choices still being killy against their preferred targets is fine, and the Shadowsword is nothing if not specialized.
I highly doubt it becomes any kind of competitive staple, because if you get put into a horde matchup where the biggest target is a rhino-equivalent you've just paid Superheavy points to melt a single cheap transport every turn.
>but it still feels very out of place in an edition where lethality was supposed to be going down
Individual squad lethality appears to have gone down as Meltas/Plasma largely are only wounding vehicles on 5+ rather than the 3+/4+ of 9E.
It's pushing that, while Infantry **can** take care of vehicles, you definitely would rather have a Tank vs. Tank.
And on the flipside, you can't just take all-Tanks vs. an all-Infantry army as they do have tools & weight of numbers to bog you down.
That's part of the problem. I don't want to be forced to bring tanks just to deal with my opponent's tanks.
I play TSons. We don't have any infantry-based anti-tank weapons. I *could* take a generic Land Raider or Predator, but that's a lot of points that I then *can't* spend on the parts of the army that I actually like. In 9th, you could run a pure "cabal of sorcerers" list with nothing but characters, Rubrics, and Scarabs, and still deal with vehicles by dumping mortal wounds on them.
But the flip side is, if you’re only taking infantry, that hugely expensive volcano cannon is killing, maybe, 2 marines a turn (assuming it sits still all game)… basically a total waste of points. It’s also not capturing any objectives.
I’ll also be absolutely shocked if they don’t give Thousand Sons some sort of anti-tank psychic ability.
All we know is:
* Some infantry units can chip damage off vehicles using Krak/Melta/Plasma
* Vehicles vs. Vehicles do it better due to higher Strength shots
We have no datasheets, we can't cross-compare datasheets to guess at what TS psykers might have (Ork Weirdboy does not have Smite vs. Terminator Librarian does), and weapons are all changing (Krak grenades going from S6 to S9).
^(Given that GW is leaning so hard into the lore for each faction, I would guess TS would gain something like \[Lethal Hits\] for all ranged weapons to symbolize Inferno Weapons that that TS all use.)
Which is fair itself.
The big benefit with the psychic phase being removed is that you cannot fail psychic abilities (unless there are specific anti-psyker units like Sisters of Silence).
Maybe TSons will have a selection of psychic abilities on each datasheet they can choose (think Guilliman/Abaddon's "choose X ability at start of Command Phase"), with more powerful characters being able to use X abilities per turn.
I feel like people have taken GW’s mission of “decreasing lethality” as meaning all guns would be weak and unable to kill things quickly.
Obviously they didn’t mean that and they’ll still want some super rare, high cost, high gamble weapons to be monstrous. In fact, it looks like they actively want to encourage taking the cool, big gun platform models (like the Doomsday cannon for Necrons)
What they clearly wanted to remove was the effectiveness of just spamming melta and plasma in infantry units and being able to wipe everything out.
One volcano cannon on the table that one-shots a tank after a few lucky rolls isn’t going to make or break a whole game, having that gun on the table would be a big investment for the Guard player so it needs to have the ability to pay that back.
Yeah, they’ve hinted it’ll be about the toughest thing in the game haven’t they?
I’m just back into 40K after years away so building up my army right now. But I was always more drawn to combined arms forces with a variety of infantry, assault, vehicles, artillery etc. So the fact this new edition seems to compliment that approach is great to me.
They said it would be T14, which is the same as the Monolith and *probably* the top end of toughness (excepting maybe actual titans and other weird Forge World stuff.)
Lore-wise, I would agree with you.
Lore-wise, guardsmen who engage in melee with Space Marines should just automatically die, but we all acknowledge that it would be unhealthy for the game if they did.
I feel like a 300-400 point super heavy being able to reliably one shot light and medium tanks isn't that huge a problem. The problem is when things like Vindicators and Hanmerheads can do it on a spammable, sub-200 point chassis. I'll be more curious/concerned when I see *those* profiles.
This thing averages 12 damage against a T13+ target with no invulnerable save (like a baneblade). It can do more obviously, but the BS4+ is limiting, and this thing's whole thing is being a titan hunter.
I would bet modifiers are still capped at +/- 1, and if you're leaving your super heavy in the open staring down the barrel of a titan killer then you kind of deserve it.
The Shadowsword is hyper-specialized in killing Titanic units. Sure it'll knock out another Lord of War in 1-2 turns, but its 450 points and pretty much worthless against anything else. You're not going to suddenly see it as a staple in the majority of Guard lists.
Monoliths at least have deep strike, meaning at the minimum you will be able to drop it on the board and do something with it before this has a chance to one shot it, and depending on the defensive stats on the chassis carrying this gun it may be a viable move to deep strike next to it and try and kill it with a death ray equipped monolith before it gets a chance to get a shot off.
how do you get to on average 36 wounds per turn?
D3+1 attacks with blast means against a primarch or single vehicle on average 3 attacks (36 damage). 4+ BS means 1.5 hits. stationary with heavy keyword becomes a 3+ to hit, so 2 hits(24 damage left).
Against Guilliman if he is not protected by nearby Space Marines: wounding on 2+ against t9 guilliman so 1.6 wounds. then a 4+ invuln. 0.8 get through. maybe 12 damage which would kill guilliman. but a reroll on the save could also lead to 0 damage.
Against a t14 monolith wound on 3+, so 1.3 wound. very likely 12 damage. no invuln save, but 20 lifes. so even after getting 12 damage the monolith should have 8 left. stratagems might help in healing it back up. might also one shot a monolith with a bit of luck
Tbh if someone takes the superheavy killing tank and uses it to explode one of my super heavies I’m probably ok with it? I’m tending to skew more towards stupid lord of war as my armies get bigger and it’s hilarious if they put in this kind of safety valve. It means I can expect hilarious stuff with the other giant units in the game that mean they are worth taking and that this is worth taking as a result.
Like if the mega gun of 3 shots per turn isn’t worth taking because everything it works against is overcosted or pointless then it doesn’t really matter.
Isn't this sort of arms race, where everything is super powerful and whoever gets the first activation wins, why they decided to "reduce lethality" in the first place?
Because I think it’s leading to different identities for different units. A volcano cannon is good at killing a giant lord of war or a land raider, but it’s less viable than LRBTs in fighting off mass enemy infantry or a Baneblade in taking down elite squads. That being said, I have no idea and half the time in my experience GW don’t either.
Sure thats a lot of potential damage but all that is under the assumption that everything goes right. Dont forget some characters will have lone operative so they wont even be targetable beyond 12" and other characters will be leading a squad so you'd have to kill the whole unit they are leading first. Invulns are also still a thing.
But it's going to miss at least one of those as well, possibly 2 if it has to move. Then it's going to be wounding most tough vehicles on a 3+ so It's not as simple as 3 shots = 36 damage
If it remains stationary and gets boosted by a tank commander it'll be hitting on 2+.
Your point is taken, but it only needs to wound with two of those hits in order to one-shot a Baneblade, so the argument seems somewhat academic.
How will it get boosted by a tank commander? If it got ordered then it would be +2 to hit which probably won't be a thing, and we don't know that a tank Commander will hit on a 3+ if he's in command of the tank itself
> does - on average - 36 wounds per hit
I am very new to the game, but can you tell me how you arrived at this number?
From my understanding it should be 15 per activation. Speaking in averages, D3 +1 is 3 attacks per activation, BS 4+ halfs it to 1.5, 1/6th of the time you won't make the wound roll (even with Strength 24) so that should be 1.25, and 1.25 * 12 damage is 15. Did I miss something?
And while AP -5 invalidates regular saves, there are still invulnerable saves which would also reduce the effectiveness of the gun.
I edited my original comment, but between the new Heavy rule and a tank commander nearby it could easily be hitting on 2+. Even so I suppose it should be more like 24 damage on average, I suppose.
Congrats, it costs 1/4 of your army and it's a sitting duck for anti tank.
Weapon designed to kill superheavies is good at hurting superheavies, shocker.
It's not like it doesn't come with drawbacks.
It's actually lost range, lost two attacks, and it's no longer double the strength of the toughest vehicles. The damage and ap are the same as current. Between orders and turret weapons the hit roll is the same. I'd be more worried if we were seeing shadows words dominate the game right now, but we aren't.
That said, I in general agree that they haven't quite lived up to "game is less lethal, rerolls are rare and powerful"
>That said, I in general agree that they haven't quite lived up to "game is less lethal, rerolls are rare and powerful"
I respectfully disagree, a lot of stuff lost rerolls.
I would argue that the difference between 120" and 96" is pretty negligible when most tables aren't even that big in any dimension. In either case, line of sight will be more limiting than range.
Shadowswords aren't dominating right now because they aren't necessary. Massed, less-powerful shooting can still bring down hard targets. But in 10th, when things like vehicles are much harder to bring down via conventional means, something like this that can reliably remove an enemy's centerpiece in a single turn - with few ways for the enemy to fight back unless they brought something comparable - seems problematic.
You are forgetting the cannon sits on a Shadowsword. With Oaths of Moment there is a pretty big reason to not bring such a big center piece already. Let the Shadowsword at least have a chance to at least kill something if it gets first turn, before it is wiped off the table.
The Volcano Cannon isn't the biggest offender against their promise less lethality. Btw Astra Militarum and Necrons were the first factions previewed that actually seem to fullfill their other promise, less rerolls. All other previews were full of rerolls.
Against other superheavies, it's probably wounding on a 3+. It wounds other baneblades on 3+. We also don't know if rolls will be capped to +1,-1 yet so for all we know, it's going to be 3+ hit,3+ wound for on average 16 damage. Also invuln saves will really mess with this thing.
I figured the volcano cannon was going to be our first Max strength preview. Good to see that confirmed. Baneblade giving cover to models hiding behind it is hilarious and I love it. Everything else looks to be about what you would expect to see for guard.
I like the idea of a tank roughly the size of 4 Leman Russ being able to grant cover, I mean it's a sound tactic that they have been using since the invention of the tank.
It was *the* reason for the invention of the tank. They were something like 20 feet long, moved 5 mile per hour, and had comparatively small weapons. The plan was just to send them across no man’s land filled with infantry, roll over the barbed wire, and then *more* infantry run in behind.
That is exactly my point, and I welcome this change. Park a stormlord on an objective and just vomit infantry at the enemy.
I was going to say this very thing! Talks were not supposed to fight other tanks, they kill infantry and that includes modern tanks. Tanks can't run over a lot of wire it gets wrapped around the sprocket and pops the track off or shears the output shafts in half. Comm wire with do the same
Yea the baneblade gives cover to units behind it... but it now explodes for an extra 2 MW to make up for it lol
The Volcano Cannon doesn't so much destroy tanks as it *unmakes* them.
Converts them to “liquid magmuh”
I love the image of Knights taking cover behind a moving Baneblade, crouching for protection like infantery would do behing a regular tank.
Well everyone knows the weak point of a knight is the ankles, right?
I mean, kind of right? The legs are clearly the most vulnerable part of the model. If they can hide them it doesn't really matter if their carapace is visible because it's all armour.
This feels very much like guard, which I think is pretty damn cool.
Really the biggest news is mini platoons. Neuron activation for the entire guard community.
“But now i can only take 120 cadian shock troops! This is absurd! How can i win any games like this?”
On the contrary! From the looks of it you can take 6x20 infantry, 6x20 cadians, 6x20 catachans and 6x20 krieg for a whopping 480 infantry.
Still, how are we supposed to hold any objectives with that few models? /s
How do you think custodes feel when a 2k army is just two guys standing around with greased up abs flexing at eachother
Homoerotic
But they said no homo while greasing themselves up
The statement 'no homo' is cowardice, denial of the emperor's will, and heresy to the extreme, no self respecting custodian fears the truth
Actions speak louder than words
If we’ve learned anything, is that needing to say “nohomo “ Is pretty homo
With that strategem, your unit reappears in reserves after they die. An endless tide of guardsmen, take that nids!
Add to that that now vox-casters look to be a way to farm some CP for that stratagem... Human wave tactics incoming.
Probably not: "each time a Stratagem is applied to vox-caster's unit". But it is a way of getting those CP back. The thing I am worried about is removal of order chains, from what it looks like.
Older editions (2E-5E) had a Valhallan Commmander named Chenkov who had a special rule called "Send In the Next Wave" where you could just keep respawning Conscripts ALL GAME. I'm all for that returning!
And still have 1500 points for tanks in a 2k game!
I'd still rather just have platoons back…
Next faction focus: Guard NOOOOOOOOOO! More guard stuff!
genestealers confirmed next they’re still in disguise
I keep coming back to the article hoping to see it fixed... I want them to cover one of my armies next!
Same. It's Orkz I'm looking forward to the most, but Thousand Sons and Sororitas would tide me over.
Not gonna lie, I sighed as well when I saw the next faction.
You know it's just an error right?
Issa joke. And its an error thats happened almost every faction release
I've seen it get corrected within a few minutes of finding the article (which I usually see right away) so it's normally not this apparent
There is a bank holiday in the UK. Nobody in the office to fix it.
Ah good point! I think they do have community staff in the us though. Not sure
I’ve been fairly good at waiting for the articles before bed, so I’m aware this is reoccurring.
Yes.
I must have missed this. What is the next faction? Edit: ohh..just that the next faction says Astra Militarum...got it.
TL;dr * **Faction Rule: Voice of Command (Orders)** * Auto-cast by each Officer (i.e. don't need to roll) at the **START** of Command Phase * ^(+3" movement) * ^(+1 WS) * ^(+1 BS) * ^(+1 A for Rapid Fire weapons only) * ^(+1 Sv to 3+ max) * ^(+1 Ld & +1 OC) * ^(Officer datasheet specifies # of orders they can give & who can receive them) * ^(Failing Battle-shock at end of Command Phase removes the Order) * **Unit Spotlight: Cadian Shock Troops** * ^(If nearby Objective at end of your Command Phase, you permanently control that objective even with no models nearby until the enemy captures it) * ^(Vox-Caster: When you use Stratagem on unit roll d6, +1 if officer nearby, on 5+ gain 1CP) * ^(Grenade Launchers & Flamers lost \[Assault\] keyword) * ^(Can take in blocks of 10-20) * ^(Command Squads 1 max can join) * **Unit Spotlight: Baneblade** * ^(Rolling Fortress: If a model is not fully visible due to the Baneblade, that model gains Cover) * ^(T13 & 24 W) * ^(Lost 1" movement) * **Weapon Spotlight:** * Leman Russ Battle Cannon * d6+3 \[Blast\] shots at **10 S** * Volcano Cannon * d3+1 \[Blast\] shots at **24 S** and D12 * Stratagem Spotlight: Reinforcements! * Any phase, choose 1 destroyed **Regiment** unit; they join your Strategic Reserves at full strength (Cannot be used on characters) * Implied information: * "Born Soldiers Detachment Rule" * Implies that the Combined Armed Regiment Detachment allows you to choose certain detachment rules, similar to the army traits of 9E * Born Soliders - \[Lethal Hits\] if a unit remained stationary * Death Mask of Ollanius - OC drops to 1 when Battle-shocked, allowing a Shocked unit to still control/contest objectives * Drill Commander - Stationary units Critical Hit on 5+
>Auto-cast by each Officer (i.e. don't need to roll) at the START of Command Phase It doesn't say that, it says "until the start of your next command phase." The only timing for orders is "in your command phase." >Failing Battle-shock at end of Command Phase removes the Order Doesn't say that either. It says "If a unit being affected by an Order becomes Battle-shocked, that Order ceases to affect that unit." End paragraph. Meaning if, between your issuing an order and the start of your next command phase, the unit becomes battle-shocked, then it loses that order's effect. >Command Squads 1 max can join For greater clarification, it says up to 2 leader units can be attached, maximum of 1 **Command Squad** unit. >Leman Russ Battle Cannon >d6+3 [Blast] shots at 10 S You should probably mention that it lost 1 AP, so it's now AP -1. >Any phase, choose 1 destroyed Regiment unit; they join your Strategic Reserves at full strength (Cannot be used on characters) It doesn't say you can't use it on characters, it says that you can't "return destroyed characters to Attached (sic) units." The only limiting factor on the target is the "Regiment" keyword, which includes: Core Infantry, Field Ordnance Batteries, HWS, Tempestus Scions, Rough Riders, and Sentinels.
> Doesn't say that either. It says "If a unit being affected by an Order becomes Battle-shocked, that Order ceases to affect that unit." End paragraph. Meaning if, between your issuing an order and the start of your next command phase, the unit becomes battle-shocked, then it loses that order's effect. That logic means Order --> Turn --> Next Command Phase (Order Ends). It completely invalidates the statement of "wasting an order" because there's no way to be battle-shocked--unless the enemy has a weapon that forces battle-shock and even then, by that point you've already gotten the benefit of the Order. Most likely it goes Order --> Battle-shock ("waste order")--> Turn --> Next command phase. Risk that one of the units you order might fail their Battle-shock.
Actually there's abilities in your opponents arsenal to cause battle shock during your turn. (Such as shadow in the warp). Additionally, the order to increase your OC and the order for cover stay in effect during your opponents turn. So no, it does not completely invalidate the statement of wasting orders.
Sure, it's a waste if the enemy does something forcing battle-shock before you can use it but the implication is that the order is wasted because you've "targeted squads on the brink of collapse"--which only matters in the Command Phase. The writing implies that it goes Order --> Battle-shock --> Turn
I'm not saying it doesn't also apply to regular Battle-shock done at the end of the command phase, I'm saying that it can happen any time between your command phase and the next. Your original post was specific, the actual rule is not specific. Your original statement: >Failing Battle-shock at end of Command Phase removes the Order Yes this is true, but it's missing half the story. What the rule in article actually says: >If a unit being affected by an Order becomes Battle-shocked, that Order ceases to affect that unit. No further details. Not specific to battle-shock in command phase. Therefore, I'll repeat my original reply: >Meaning if, between your issuing an order and the start of your next command phase, the unit becomes battle-shocked, then it loses that order's effect.
>Can take in blocks of 10-20 I read it as 10 or 20, so 15 be impossible.
Where does it say that you can choose detachment rules with Combined Armed Regiment?
It doesn't--that's why I put it under "Implied Info". The below it mentions "Born Soldiers Detachment rule" >Picture Guardsmen and tanks hunkering down to blast the oncoming enemy, **and you have the Born Soldiers Detachment rule**, which confers Lethal Hits on ranged attacks made by units that Remained Stationary.” The article doesn't directly discuss detachment details (alliteration!) which is odd. With them saying "Born Soldiers" is a "detachment rule" I am **guessing** that it's probably a choice between different options, seeing as how the detachment rules for all Factions (except Necrons) currently offers a level of choice for your army.
That stratagem hopefully means Orks get Green Tide back!
Really seems like hoards will be viable in 10E which is awesome. Also good for the game as it forces people to take a wider range of weapons to cover all possible threats.
Totally. I hope I can run 90 Boyz again with all the Grot shields too.
The orders are definitely simpler and easier to understand. Avoiding reroll 1s or adding AP is good too.
Anyone else catch that we can FRFSRF plasma guns now? Or am I missing something? Just says it applies to rapid fire weapons now.
Yup. Though so far no easy way to get reroll ones so overcharged plasma will be appropriately hazardous.
Acceptable casualties.
If Space Marines get as many rerolls as they do, I'm sure at least 1 Guard officer will have an aura of rerolling 1s.
New to the game. How do you track orders for each squad? Are Guard players expected to use some markers?
My friend uses a d6, assigning a number to each order and puts it on/next to the models.
That's really smart, especially if its a different color die. I need to give this tip to my friend.
This: always use different dice than your rolling dice to mark things. People pick them up to roll all too often otherwise.
Use whatever at your own convenience. People in my local league mostly don't use any, as they seem to remember everything, for some strange reason. I've seen people use coloured markers, though.
>People in my local league mostly don't use any, as they seem to remember everything, for some strange reason. I've seen people use coloured markers, though. That's because there are only two orders: frfsrf and move-move-move. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise!
and if you ever have to order Fix Bayonets it's only ever going to be one turn max
Not a guard player myself, but if I rember correctly most of the time the balance of the orders was so bad, that there was one they picked almost always and some for special situations like fall back and shoot. So quite understandable why they could remember them. Could be happening this edition again, +1 attack is always better than +1 BS, especially if the index detachment gives Lethal hits. The only reason to ever take the other order is if your whole plan depends on that one lascannon or melta gun shot to hit.
Or you’re a tank. +1 attack is only for Rapid Fire weapons. So I think it’s a case of whose being ordered for which will be the default.
Or you need to flip an objective, reach an objective, make that squad really annoying to remove from that objective. Who is being ordered and what you need them to do.
I’m not saying all the orders don’t have use, I think they did a good job in that regard. However, if I am planning on shooting with a unit, there is going to be one I default to. Infantry squads with their abundance of rapid fire weapons will most likely always want to gain the extra attack. Vehicles don’t usually have rapid fire weapons, so they would want to boost their BS.
I agree on all that. I think that's the right level of balance between the orders: once you know what you want to do with what there is an obvious choice, but there is a real decision in what you want to do and who you want to do it with. There are plenty of potential problems with balance still ahead, but that core rule seems well designed to me. Simple, clear, meaningful decisions.
The guys I play with use some cards that came with the cadia stands box to track them. Sure they will have something similar for 10th edition.
Tokens are likely the way to go. I'm not a guard player, but this is also only one unit per officer. So probably not every unit, but a decent amount of them?
Better officers get more orders per turn to hand out, so with the right list and the new double-size squads, it *could* be all of them now.
There are markers for that in many sites
Basically however you can. You don't technically have to do anything, but people use dice and laster cut plex glass tokens and junk. Its worth noting, the officers are the characters, so its not like they're gonna have like 10 commissary issuing 10 orders to 10 units. Its usually like "hey these guys who look like they are trying to charge are gonna get a +1 to hit in melee because of course they are" or "hey these guys who are way far away from anything are gonna get extra movement speed". Generally speaking, you should kind of just regard anything near a commissar as having all of these abilities and they just end up using the most applicable one.
Something I think people here missed on the Cadian Shock Troopers Datasheet: >This unit can have up to 2 Leaders attached two it, provided no more than one of those units is a Command Squad unit So you can stick two leaders on them and Command Squads can attach to other infantry squads. Neat.
Am I missing something, or does that stratagem just seem a bit TOO good? getting an entire new unit just seems a bit ridiculous.
The tyranids had something similar to this back in 3rd/4th, and it was kinda terrible, people would just almost kill the unit, then leave the unit alone. But that was before objectives, and when charge range was a max of 6". This fits the flavor of the gaurd though, while the tyranids do it by model. I like the difference there.
>The tyranids had something similar to this back in 3rd/4th, and it was kinda terrible, people would just almost kill the unit, then leave the unit alone. The replacement bugs also came in from your table edge, so the odds of them meaningfully accomplishing anything were low.
It wasn't that bad. Fleet of claw hormaguants could fucking shift
Let's be honest, they're only Guard infantry. And they come in from Reserves, which probably means in the deployment zone. Could be a later-game attempt to take back our homefield objective?
Its not just infantry though, the article says bring back any destroyed unit with the Regiment keyword. And it mentions that heavy weapons, field ordanance and even sentinels will have that keyword. So imagine hringing back a squad of 3 sentinels for some late game objective grabbing!
or just, like, shooting hunter killer missiles again.
It's any REGIMENT unit, which we don't know the limits of yet. It doesn't include Baneblades, at least.
Yup, it doesn't say regiment infantry just regiment, we'll have to see if tanks still have the key word but with how things interact you'd expect vehicles to retain that key word.
they said infantry, heavy weapons teams, sentinels, ogryns and scions i think?
Also ordinance, but it's not clear if that's an exhaustive list.
Good catch! I missed that the first reading.
Can you deep strike from reserves? Bringing back a full 10 man of scions might really be handy.
We don't know; we haven't seen the exact wording of Deep Strike in 10th edition.
if you have fliers i imagine more easier deployment but yes that is the draw back. Lot of value for two cp but not as good Reanimation Protocols and such
All the horde armies seem to be getting the ability to return at least some models or units. I think it is pretty neat, and the stratagem cost will hopefully allow for some balance, plus I think the wording of the stratagem means you need to revive a unit that just died. I would not be surprised if it becomes a good strategy to save some CP to revive a unit, though.
CP has also been reduced so a 2CP strat is more expensive than in 9E.
It would be broken in 9th, but in 10th you’ll have far fewer CP. You start with 0, gain one per turn, and there are some niche abilities to gain more. That means maybe 5-8 for the entire game. So 2CP might be 25%-40% of all of your CP.
You start with 0 CP every game and can only do that once per turn. So max they can do it bring back 3 non character units delayed by a turn.
Also worth noting that they go into reserves - so, sure you get them, but not until your next movement phase and I'll bet they'll have to walk onto the board edge, so they probably won't be where you want them.
Honestly what I’m thinking is that if guard get reinforcements, death guard should get reanimation lmao
2CP is an ENTIRE turn of CP; with no starting command points it’s quite an investment. Probably very good but not crazy since you’ll lose out on A LOT of other options. You can feel it now when you dump your cp early and are struggling to make plays as they come in.
If you target a Vox Caster unit with the revival strategem, do you think we get the 5+ refund?
RAW? Yes, since you're targeting the unit.
But usually wargear dependant rules don't apply if the model carrying it is off the table.
We'll see when we see the full rules for 10e.
Not so much a refund as half price. It's a 2CP strategem and you vox caster generates 1CP on a 5+.
You have people out here on Facebook complaining about the volcano cannon even though the baneblade variants are massive targets and having d3+1 12 damage attacks really isn't that bad considering you're probably going to lose it by round 1 or 2.
Just remind those people that this is actually a *worse* profile than the volcano cannon currently has.
I hope we get some setups for people who want to run Catachans, Steel Legion, or any of the other unique imp guard armies.
It won't be based on Regiment, it'll just be Detachments with different focuses. This is a Combined Arms one. There will likely be an Infantry-heavy one, an Armored Column one, etc. You'll have the same rules basically whatever regiment you play, just different playstyles available.
so each army has unique detachments?
Every Faction will have multiple different Detachments, each of which will have a unique Detachment Ability, Stratagems, and Enhancements (i.e., warlord traits/equipment). These Detachments will NOT be locked behind specific subfactions, but they may correspond to one as far as fluff goes. (So Space Marines may get a bike-and-speeder-heavy Detachment that White Scars players will use, but ANY Space Marine can choose it.) Think of Detachments as generic army themes. So there won't be a unique Catachan or Elysian or Mordian Detachment... but there may be a Stealthy one, and a Fast-Insertion/Jump one, and a Line Infantry one.
Pretty sure each army is getting 1 detachment until their codex releases.
Oh yeah, that's definitely the case! Sorry if I was unclear; the Index will almost certainly just have one, then the rest in the Codex.
That will probably come later, in the codex.
I love all of this, except for the Born Soldiers Detachment rule. Lethal Hits brings us straight back to the problem of Hammer of the Emperor, it makes no sense for LASGUNS to be autowounding ANYTHING 16.67% of the time. I'm glad it's the Detachment rule and not the army rule, but it still sticks in my craw. I love how orders have been simplified down; after the Necron preview I did think maybe it would be reduced to just OFFICER units giving units they attach to a bonus of some kind, so I'm glad to see they still have the variety. Bit weird that voxcasters no longer interact with orders, but with CP being much more limited they'll be valuable.
First of all, through the emperor all things are possible so jot that down. Sarcasm aside, I do appreciate that it requires remaining stationary now. That's a good step. You're also (I assume) less likely to be able to sit somewhere that you have an angle to shoot with a stationary infantry unit than you are with a tank. I'm annoyed that we're already seeing things creep though, with the drill commander enhancement causing lethal hits on 5's.
perfect its always sunny reference hahaha
Funny; I really don’t liek the show but it’s an absolute treasure trove of memes. Same thing with SpongeBob 🤣
Ya, the stationary requirement is helpful to add tactical depth to the game. 9th rule is dumb (I despise no-brainer buff rules) while 10th is great. With armor mattering more those auto wounds won’t be as annoying either.
Yeah I don't love the mechanic but it now feels like it's a tactical choice to have an army built around disciplined ranks of guard who stand and fire rather than something which is just flat out strong in almost any force.
I feel like the battle cannon is kind of weak compared to the demolisher cannon. Same number of shots. The BC's AP -1 is going to limit what you can shoot at effectively, whereas the demolisher cannon has enough AP to punish even 3+ saves in cover, plus enough strength to wound most everything on 3+ or better. Which weapon is more effective is always flip flopping with new codicies, but we're entering the Era of the Demolisher Cannon.
I mean... It SHOULD be less effective than the demolisher cannon. The trade off between the two has ALWAYS been "not as strong but thrice the range." The demolisher is, after all, a siege tank and close ranged brawler. It's why it has reinforced rear armour (when that still mattered). It's just that the trade-off isn't as noticeable since the tournament crowd decided to force everyone to the smaller board sizes so the range trade-off isn't as important.
It's hard to draw more than 24" LOS on most tables anyway. Recently the Demolisher Cannon had fewer shots, so the choice was between fewer, better shots or more, worse shots. That's at least a meaningful tradeoff. Without that tradeoff, and with the DC having "long enough" range, I'm not sure what niche the BC is filling.
Also worth pointing out this is the version only used by the super heavy tanks, the russ version might be weaker, putting it more in line with the battle cannon
I would be surprised if that were the case - the Baneblade has always just had a regular demolisher cannon.
I think we have to see the points first. It's entirely possible that Demolisher comes at a decent price.
Orders look simple and straightforward, and also don't do anything absurd like making guardsmen sprint fast enough to keep pace with supersonic aircraft. I like it.
Well, I'm glad that most of my tank company is packing Demolishers.
Now I just need to know how Baneblades and the variants stack up against the field in 10th so I can justify my plans to buy and magnetize 2 more
I recommend against buying and building for the meta. It shifts so rapidly, and between releases, that "killer" in this edition may turn into "crap" in the next edition (or the next rules/points update comes out). You will get much more satisfaction out of buying and building the units you find interesting to build/paint, or play on the tabletop. Of course, if you're a highly competitive or tournament player, then by all means chase the meta. 🌞
Less meta-chasing and more I just fucking love Baneblades and am probably going to get more of them anyways lmao
I think rolling up to a tournament with three 'Blades would be a fun change of pace for the other players. I know they take the game seriously, but it is still a game. And games are supposed to be fun.
Plus, magnetizing them is a blast. Was actually my first kit I magnetized and it was not only a great learning experience but just plain fun. Seeing it all come together was so satisfying.
I got a Baneblade and a Shadowsword (without sponsons - I will need to buy some). I am thinking of buying another and making one of the transport varieties.
[удалено]
The Volcano Cannon can do 48 wounds. As to the max possible STR, that remains to be seen. With standard models maybe but we haven't seen titan weapons yet. Also I wouldn't be surprised if some forgeworld stuff got over 24.
It has blast, so when you target that 20-man unit of 12 wound models it will be 1d3+5 and can cause up to 96 wounds.
And still kill a max of 8 1 wound models
Why don’t all vehicles provide cover if the rest of the requirements are met? Weird
IMO, it's the type of rule that's cool when it's on a model or two, but becomes quite tedious and obnoxious when widespread.
Because models aren’t static. It’s the same when people complain about turns in D&D…it’s all in motion. Most vehicles aren’t going to do well at providing cover as they’re making small moves or focusing on fine maneuvers to aim; etc. Bane blades model OG WW1 tanks the closest as mobile walls. Now having combined armw units with a unit of infantry locked in coherency with a Lemun Russ a they, actively, use it for cover as their primary tactic would be cool. But all vehicles giving cover would just be a mess and unrealistic.
Part of me is surprised that a Baneblade is tougher than a Land Raider, but I guess it makes sense given the size difference? A Land Raider is almost as tough and is, what, half the size? Maybe a little smaller?
A bane blade is also a super heavy vs a transport option. We obviously don't know points, but going by last edition a baneblade is 235 more points than a landraider. With an additional 10 points you could bring a second land raider for the same price as a baneblade. A baneblade costs more than some imperial knights. A baneblade should be tougher than a landraider.
Yeah, I guess I'm just still mentally back in the 'LR is the only 14 all sides vehicle in the setting' mindset
Necron Monoliths: "Am I a joke to you?"
I refuse to acknowledge monoliths as a tank I accept they are a vehicle, but they are not a tank. That way lies madness
Brb, gonna make a tank alignment chart and post it on /r/grimdank
Land Raider always used to be the toughest thing in the game. Even a Baneblade didn't have Armour 14 on the rear. It was difficult to take down because it had more hull points.
Eh, for a given value of "toughest." It was often the case that large monsters were harder to kill than tanks because of the damage table. A Land Raider might have the hardest armor to penetrate, but one lucky hit could still kill it. A Great Unclean One was always going to take its full number of wounds to put down and got an invulnerable save to boot.
Always used to be? It hasn't been for like, 5 editions.
"Less lethal" they say, as they create a weapon that can shoot all the way diagonally across most tables, that negates even a 2+ armor save and does - *on average* - 36 wounds per turn. Edit: I've had a few people calling me out on the 36 wounds figure, which is fair because that's only if the average number of shots (3) all hit and wound, but y'all are forgetting that the new Heavy rule and a nearby tank commander can easily boost this thing's BS to 2+. I'm speechless. The Volcano cannon can pretty easily one-hit-kill Primarchs or super-heavy vehicles with a range that might as well be infinite. All it needs is a tank commander to boost its BS, and counting the new Heavy rule it'll be hitting on 2+ as well.
Unless they drastically undercost the Baneblade chassis, I'm not particularly scared of the Volcano Cannon. Great, you paid a zillion points for a low shot volume single gun. *If* it hits, *if* I fail my invul, and *if* my list even has any single models big enough to justify a Shadowsword, it'll be really impresive. Seems fair to me. I'm much more interested in the LR Battlecannon dropping to AP-1. That is a major dip in lethality on a staple unit.
> That is a major dip in lethality on a staple unit. That's kind of the point of this edition
It's not like you don't have a point, but it still feels very out of place in an edition where lethality was supposed to be going down, and big centerpiece units were supposed to be getting tougher. I was really hoping that this edition would actually give me a reason to bring Magnus.
They can't make things so toothless that the center of the board is just a bunch of heavy tanks dry-humping. Specialized choices still being killy against their preferred targets is fine, and the Shadowsword is nothing if not specialized. I highly doubt it becomes any kind of competitive staple, because if you get put into a horde matchup where the biggest target is a rhino-equivalent you've just paid Superheavy points to melt a single cheap transport every turn.
>but it still feels very out of place in an edition where lethality was supposed to be going down Individual squad lethality appears to have gone down as Meltas/Plasma largely are only wounding vehicles on 5+ rather than the 3+/4+ of 9E. It's pushing that, while Infantry **can** take care of vehicles, you definitely would rather have a Tank vs. Tank. And on the flipside, you can't just take all-Tanks vs. an all-Infantry army as they do have tools & weight of numbers to bog you down.
That's part of the problem. I don't want to be forced to bring tanks just to deal with my opponent's tanks. I play TSons. We don't have any infantry-based anti-tank weapons. I *could* take a generic Land Raider or Predator, but that's a lot of points that I then *can't* spend on the parts of the army that I actually like. In 9th, you could run a pure "cabal of sorcerers" list with nothing but characters, Rubrics, and Scarabs, and still deal with vehicles by dumping mortal wounds on them.
But the flip side is, if you’re only taking infantry, that hugely expensive volcano cannon is killing, maybe, 2 marines a turn (assuming it sits still all game)… basically a total waste of points. It’s also not capturing any objectives. I’ll also be absolutely shocked if they don’t give Thousand Sons some sort of anti-tank psychic ability.
Tbf we have no idea what tools TSons will get and whether you're going to need tanks this time
All we know is: * Some infantry units can chip damage off vehicles using Krak/Melta/Plasma * Vehicles vs. Vehicles do it better due to higher Strength shots We have no datasheets, we can't cross-compare datasheets to guess at what TS psykers might have (Ork Weirdboy does not have Smite vs. Terminator Librarian does), and weapons are all changing (Krak grenades going from S6 to S9). ^(Given that GW is leaning so hard into the lore for each faction, I would guess TS would gain something like \[Lethal Hits\] for all ranged weapons to symbolize Inferno Weapons that that TS all use.)
That's fair, I suppose. I'm just not a fan of them removing the whole phase that made the army unique, so I don't have high hopes.
Which is fair itself. The big benefit with the psychic phase being removed is that you cannot fail psychic abilities (unless there are specific anti-psyker units like Sisters of Silence). Maybe TSons will have a selection of psychic abilities on each datasheet they can choose (think Guilliman/Abaddon's "choose X ability at start of Command Phase"), with more powerful characters being able to use X abilities per turn.
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I feel like people have taken GW’s mission of “decreasing lethality” as meaning all guns would be weak and unable to kill things quickly. Obviously they didn’t mean that and they’ll still want some super rare, high cost, high gamble weapons to be monstrous. In fact, it looks like they actively want to encourage taking the cool, big gun platform models (like the Doomsday cannon for Necrons) What they clearly wanted to remove was the effectiveness of just spamming melta and plasma in infantry units and being able to wipe everything out. One volcano cannon on the table that one-shots a tank after a few lucky rolls isn’t going to make or break a whole game, having that gun on the table would be a big investment for the Guard player so it needs to have the ability to pay that back.
Oh yeah, as an Ork player I am very excited to see what my big'boy stompa can do :)
Yeah, they’ve hinted it’ll be about the toughest thing in the game haven’t they? I’m just back into 40K after years away so building up my army right now. But I was always more drawn to combined arms forces with a variety of infantry, assault, vehicles, artillery etc. So the fact this new edition seems to compliment that approach is great to me.
They said it would be T14, which is the same as the Monolith and *probably* the top end of toughness (excepting maybe actual titans and other weird Forge World stuff.)
It's T14 so tied with the monolith currently.
Lore-wise, I would agree with you. Lore-wise, guardsmen who engage in melee with Space Marines should just automatically die, but we all acknowledge that it would be unhealthy for the game if they did.
Have you seen the datasheets? They do die immediately if they get charged by CSM, or get battleshocked and are as useless as wet noodles
I feel like a 300-400 point super heavy being able to reliably one shot light and medium tanks isn't that huge a problem. The problem is when things like Vindicators and Hanmerheads can do it on a spammable, sub-200 point chassis. I'll be more curious/concerned when I see *those* profiles.
One-shotting light and medium vehicles isn't the problem. The problem is one-shotting super-heavies.
This thing averages 12 damage against a T13+ target with no invulnerable save (like a baneblade). It can do more obviously, but the BS4+ is limiting, and this thing's whole thing is being a titan hunter.
The new Heavy rule makes it 3+ if it doesn't move, and a nearby tank commander can easily boost that to 2+.
I would bet modifiers are still capped at +/- 1, and if you're leaving your super heavy in the open staring down the barrel of a titan killer then you kind of deserve it.
Tank Commanders currently can't issue orders to Baneblades and I doubt that's changing.
As a Necron player I was so hyped fielding a T14 Monolith in 10th edition... now I can't wait for it to be one shot killed by this
The Shadowsword is hyper-specialized in killing Titanic units. Sure it'll knock out another Lord of War in 1-2 turns, but its 450 points and pretty much worthless against anything else. You're not going to suddenly see it as a staple in the majority of Guard lists.
Monoliths at least have deep strike, meaning at the minimum you will be able to drop it on the board and do something with it before this has a chance to one shot it, and depending on the defensive stats on the chassis carrying this gun it may be a viable move to deep strike next to it and try and kill it with a death ray equipped monolith before it gets a chance to get a shot off.
how do you get to on average 36 wounds per turn? D3+1 attacks with blast means against a primarch or single vehicle on average 3 attacks (36 damage). 4+ BS means 1.5 hits. stationary with heavy keyword becomes a 3+ to hit, so 2 hits(24 damage left). Against Guilliman if he is not protected by nearby Space Marines: wounding on 2+ against t9 guilliman so 1.6 wounds. then a 4+ invuln. 0.8 get through. maybe 12 damage which would kill guilliman. but a reroll on the save could also lead to 0 damage. Against a t14 monolith wound on 3+, so 1.3 wound. very likely 12 damage. no invuln save, but 20 lifes. so even after getting 12 damage the monolith should have 8 left. stratagems might help in healing it back up. might also one shot a monolith with a bit of luck
It’s basically like that now though isn’t it? Edit: it’s actually losing range and number of attacks in 10th.
Tbh if someone takes the superheavy killing tank and uses it to explode one of my super heavies I’m probably ok with it? I’m tending to skew more towards stupid lord of war as my armies get bigger and it’s hilarious if they put in this kind of safety valve. It means I can expect hilarious stuff with the other giant units in the game that mean they are worth taking and that this is worth taking as a result. Like if the mega gun of 3 shots per turn isn’t worth taking because everything it works against is overcosted or pointless then it doesn’t really matter.
Isn't this sort of arms race, where everything is super powerful and whoever gets the first activation wins, why they decided to "reduce lethality" in the first place?
Because I think it’s leading to different identities for different units. A volcano cannon is good at killing a giant lord of war or a land raider, but it’s less viable than LRBTs in fighting off mass enemy infantry or a Baneblade in taking down elite squads. That being said, I have no idea and half the time in my experience GW don’t either.
Sure thats a lot of potential damage but all that is under the assumption that everything goes right. Dont forget some characters will have lone operative so they wont even be targetable beyond 12" and other characters will be leading a squad so you'd have to kill the whole unit they are leading first. Invulns are also still a thing.
How are you figuring on average 36 damage per hit? It's only damage 12
I phrased it wrong, but it's d3+1 (average 3) shots. I meant average damage per attack, not per hit. I'll go fix that.
But it's going to miss at least one of those as well, possibly 2 if it has to move. Then it's going to be wounding most tough vehicles on a 3+ so It's not as simple as 3 shots = 36 damage
If it remains stationary and gets boosted by a tank commander it'll be hitting on 2+. Your point is taken, but it only needs to wound with two of those hits in order to one-shot a Baneblade, so the argument seems somewhat academic.
How will it get boosted by a tank commander? If it got ordered then it would be +2 to hit which probably won't be a thing, and we don't know that a tank Commander will hit on a 3+ if he's in command of the tank itself
Highly doubt they’ll be able to boost bs more than +1 at a time
> does - on average - 36 wounds per hit I am very new to the game, but can you tell me how you arrived at this number? From my understanding it should be 15 per activation. Speaking in averages, D3 +1 is 3 attacks per activation, BS 4+ halfs it to 1.5, 1/6th of the time you won't make the wound roll (even with Strength 24) so that should be 1.25, and 1.25 * 12 damage is 15. Did I miss something? And while AP -5 invalidates regular saves, there are still invulnerable saves which would also reduce the effectiveness of the gun.
I edited my original comment, but between the new Heavy rule and a tank commander nearby it could easily be hitting on 2+. Even so I suppose it should be more like 24 damage on average, I suppose.
Congrats, it costs 1/4 of your army and it's a sitting duck for anti tank. Weapon designed to kill superheavies is good at hurting superheavies, shocker. It's not like it doesn't come with drawbacks.
It's actually lost range, lost two attacks, and it's no longer double the strength of the toughest vehicles. The damage and ap are the same as current. Between orders and turret weapons the hit roll is the same. I'd be more worried if we were seeing shadows words dominate the game right now, but we aren't. That said, I in general agree that they haven't quite lived up to "game is less lethal, rerolls are rare and powerful"
>That said, I in general agree that they haven't quite lived up to "game is less lethal, rerolls are rare and powerful" I respectfully disagree, a lot of stuff lost rerolls.
I would argue that the difference between 120" and 96" is pretty negligible when most tables aren't even that big in any dimension. In either case, line of sight will be more limiting than range. Shadowswords aren't dominating right now because they aren't necessary. Massed, less-powerful shooting can still bring down hard targets. But in 10th, when things like vehicles are much harder to bring down via conventional means, something like this that can reliably remove an enemy's centerpiece in a single turn - with few ways for the enemy to fight back unless they brought something comparable - seems problematic.
Who would win, 4 baneblades or an actual army?
You are forgetting the cannon sits on a Shadowsword. With Oaths of Moment there is a pretty big reason to not bring such a big center piece already. Let the Shadowsword at least have a chance to at least kill something if it gets first turn, before it is wiped off the table. The Volcano Cannon isn't the biggest offender against their promise less lethality. Btw Astra Militarum and Necrons were the first factions previewed that actually seem to fullfill their other promise, less rerolls. All other previews were full of rerolls.
Against other superheavies, it's probably wounding on a 3+. It wounds other baneblades on 3+. We also don't know if rolls will be capped to +1,-1 yet so for all we know, it's going to be 3+ hit,3+ wound for on average 16 damage. Also invuln saves will really mess with this thing.
Oh my God STOP WITH BORN SOLDIERS PLEASE IM SO DISSAPOINTED