New 8th Edition 40K Rules - Weapons, Datasheets, Points & Stratagems

In theory this post has caught me up with the information that GW has released but by the time it posts we'll have had another three days worth of stuff. I really need to get onto some stuff for Double Trouble 2. Hopefully later in the week because by then there'll only be a couple of weeks to go. Not long to get your ticket then if you haven't already!

Weapons Part 2
I'm reassured slightly that there'll still be some dramatic stuff happening if your dice are hot on those random shots and damage rolls. Especially with a twin-linked lascannon or two. Twin-linked returns to how it was the past. Basically a single weapon that fires twice the shots of the standard version. It'll be interesting to see how the cost of units with twin-linked weapons are adjusted to reflect this. Something tells me they'll generally reduce points so that you need more models to have a game of a decent length.

Anyway, firing twice as many shots is significantly better than just re-rolling. That makes for some massive damage potential. The twin heavy bolter example is interesting because it seems that AP4 is now a -1 modifier. It follows then that AP3 = -2. AP2 = -3 (as we saw with the lascannon) and AP1 = -4 (as we see with the meltagun). What we don't really find out is what happens for AP6 and AP- though. Will they also be AP0 like AP5 or will they give a positive modifier?

You've also got to wonder how twin-flamers will work. Just double the shots that still automatically hit? That'd be brutal.

Combi-weapons are certainly better (depending on how much we have to pay for them). They don't fit the fluff of limited ammunition for the combi bit but you have to make a choice between an accurate shot for one of the other or gamble that you'll get more damage from firing both. Question is, are they actually worth it? You'll be firing both at the same target so often you'll not bother with the bolter to get the melta a better chance at hitting a tank. Since you can now split off from your unit to do this, would you just be better taking a meltagun where available?

Speaking of which a meltagun is pretty much what I expected. A more reliable anti-tank weapon (in terms of damage) than the lascannon but with lower strength it has less chance of getting to do that damage.

As we already knew. There's no blasts anymore but it seems that weapons that used them will still be useful. A battle cannon won't kill more than 6 models in a unit of single wound models but will be significantly better against units of multi-wound models and hugely improved against a single MC. Your old blast could only cause a single wound to an MC but now you could potentially cause 18 wounds to an MC (or vehicle for that matter). The Leman Russ is looking pretty good right now.

Datasheets
This is the kind of thing we wanted to see. Actual rules and stats from units. It's a shame that the random person on FB didn't pick something more interesting than Rubric Marines but still, there's a lot to unpack. Firstly, special rules are gone. That's about 20 pages out of the rulebook already! I'm a big fan of (nearly) everything for a particular unit being on the same page. There'll still be some army-wide stuff but mostly you'll be able to open the book to the right page for whatever unit you're dealing with at the time. Hopefully this doesn't mean the death of the summary stats page at the back of the codex though.

There's mixed feelings about keeping the points and rules separate. Firstly, this isn't really a new thing. Up until the last couple of editions you had the rules early in the book and the points later. The latest codexes "simplified" this by having a reference page for all of the rules. They presumably though this would be easier but flicking back and forth through a book was a pain. It's promising that they're planning on updating the points to reflect how the meta changes. Besides, once you've picked your army you don't need to know how much it cost. What is strange is that the datasheet has wargear options on it. Why bother putting these on here if the points for them are listed elsewhere? Wouldn't it make more sense to remove this section to save space? You'll have to refer to your army list to see what everything is equipped with anyway.

Anyway, it's interesting that units can still potentially have two different battlefield roles. Opens up the possibility of thematic armies for things like Blood Angels and White Scars where assault troops and bikes respectively can be take as Troops.

I know Keywords are nothing new really but for 40K I think they make a lot of sense. You can easily group units together for things like how they interact with cover, how they're affected by special rules, what vehicles they can board.

Again, it's a shame that we weren't given a more interesting unit as an example. What we can gleam from this though is that Force weapons act differently. Swords are still the lowest in strength compared to axes, staves, etc but they now have better AP! With no Initiative any more you'd have to wonder how much they cost relative to each other because presumably they all strike at once now. You'd have to wonder how Force weapons compare to their Power weapon counterparts though.

Finally, interesting that models within the same unit can have different movement values. Does that mean coherency isn't a thing anymore? I know you could sometimes have characters in a unit that moved differently but had to remain in coherency but with templates gone you have to wonder what the mechanic will be now.

Points & Power Levels
Well, first thing that strikes me here is that the Ambush mission deployment looks pretty brutal if the defender is a shooty army and the attack is combat based! Starting pretty much in charge range looks nasty. Still this is a Narrative mission by the looks of the description.

I'm liking the idea of power levels. Points are all well and good but they're often a little meaningless and you end up spending ages deciding between two 5 pt upgrades to use up those final points. Just being able to pick units to a certain power level cost takes a lot of that nonsense away. Perhaps in my casual games we'll switch to this if the power levels seem reasonably sensible.

Onto some actual points and a tactical squad marine is now 13 pts (formerly 14) but a multi-melta is now 27pts (formerly 10). The rumours of super marines not withstanding, that certainly feels like marines aren't going to suddenly return to their status in the fluff as brutal fighters capable of taking on multiple lesser foes. Of course, we haven't seen how much anything else is yet so we've got no yardstick but it's interesting that they think 2,000pts will be a two hour game. If true, that either means higher points in tournaments or else the possibility of getting a fourth game into a one day event if you stuck at 1,500pts.

Sidenote: I'm in favour of the game being more streamlined but if it becomes too quick to play it will definitely lose some of its identity. Of course we can play bigger games but having shorter games has the potentially to make it feel less... epic somehow.

The big hammer drop here though is Summoning. No more freebie units. Instead you'll be using your "Reinforcement Points" to determine how much you can summon. Also worth noting here than Infiltrate and Deep Strike are still things that exist. I still hope they limit the units factions that can use Summoning (Keywords make this simple to do). You can make whatever fluff argument you like for an Eldar farseer suddenly summoning some Slaanesh daemons but to me it feels incredibly wrong.

There's a big question mark here about whether GW will actually try to keep maintaining balance by tweaking points for weapons/units but at least they're recognising the concept and allowing for the potential to balance things.

Stratagems
The term isn't anything new to 40K. They've been around in things like Planetstrike for a long time. I've never been a fan of them in that guise though as they're an extra thing to choose when selecting your army and more things to remember to do (and more importantly be aware that your opponent can do) during the game.

I'm reassured then that it sounds like everyone gets access to the standard three presented here but there'll also be some for each faction. Providing this doesn't end up with silly amounts I think it's a good mechanic that adds some tactical depth. Deciding when to burn your command points is a key thing to master in games like Space Hulk and I can see it being the same here. Use them early on trivial things and you might regret it when you need them for something more vital later.

Seems like a good way of rewarding people for creating armies that use fewer combinations of factions too and for adhering to FOCs with what they select. I like the Stratagems shown here. You can see that they'll be useful and the costs seem reasonable too. One point for the re-roll, which may not work out anyway, but two points for the Stratagems with guaranteed rewards.

Hopefully there'll be other characters besides Bjorn that affect the amount of command points you receive or how you'll use them. I'm fully expecting Warlord Traits to be a thing of the past (one less thing to bother with in pre-game) and Command Points/Stratagems seem to be a great replacement.

Conclusion
I'm really struggling to find fault in most of what GW is doing here. I'm still skeptical about their ideas of balance and every unit being useful but it all seems to be going in the right direction. The 8th edition of our beloved game is shaping up to be recognisable as 40K but without a lot of the baggage that has made it less fun to play.

Speaking of which, I really hope we get a post on the pre-game sequence (and that it's clearly mapped out in the new rulebook). This has always been one of my big problems with 40K. When it takes some armies about 30 minutes to even start putting models on the table it's easy to see why new players might be put off. If Warlord Traits are gone, Psychic Powers aren't random anymore, etc then maybe we'll get stuck into killing each other a lot sooner. That has to be a good thing.

With the amount of stuff they've already released, you'd have to think that the new edition is coming pretty soon. What they've said though is that every faction will be a getting a "Faction Focus" article in the run up. They're releasing them every other day at the moment. We've had four so far and there's something like 21 factions left (depending on how you define them e.g. are Skitarii and Cults just Ad Mech now?). That means another month and a half unless they either a) increase the frequency, b) merge some factions or c) aren't actually going to cover all of them. If everything stays the same we'd be looking at the end of June rather than the mid-June release I'd originally guessed.

Still, the smart money is on them announcing the date for pre-orders at Warhammer Fest and I'll be there so I can hopefully let you guys know what I find out!

New 8th Edition 40K Rules - Faction Focus

Seems like GW are releasing one of these articles every other day so the next one will probably be out before you read this. These articles are pretty light on meaty content but there's still some useful stuff to be teased out of (most of) them.

Faction Focus - Chaos Space Marines
You have to feel for CSM players. They got the first codex in 6th edition only to spend the rest of it feeling like they were screwed over by every subsequent book that came out. They're getting a similarly raw deal now. They get the first Faction Focus article but despite writing a lot of words, Frankie (off of Frontline Gaming), doesn't actually tell us anything of substance. Those units you don't use. They're good now they are. That's basically it.

Clearly GW have responded to the complaints about this on social media and all the other articles now have at least a couple of titbits of actual info in them. Poor old CSM players will have to wait (possibly until release day) for anything more useful.

Faction Focus - Astra Militarum
More of the same puff piece that makes you think your Guardsmen will be a forced to be reckoned with and that some rarely seen unit (here Rough Riders and Bullgryns) will now be a viable choice. There's some useful information thrown in here though such as Ratlings (and presumably all snipers) being able to target Characters.

We get some actual stats too. A Leman Russ will be T8, 3+ save and 12 wounds. It's interesting to compare this to a Dreadnought. Formerly AV12, 3HP it now gets eight T7 wounds with a 3+ save. Clearly the Leman Russ is tougher but with the new To Wound chart it doesn't seen hugely better than a dread. It'll be interesting to see if a Land Raider gets a 2+ save or higher toughness to correlate with the AV14 all round.

Orders are now automatic (cutting out a Ld test - more streamlining). First Rank, Second Rank seems similar to how it does now but for me the interesting thing is that Rapid Fire seems like it'll work in the same way it does now.

Faction Focus - Eldar
Again, more talking up of units with minimal back up. The snippets are interesting again though.

Phoenix Lords sound like they'll be cheaper and offer some army (or at least bubble) benefits. Oh and Asurman deals some mortal wounds with his sword. Good for him! Guide, Doom and Fortune are back but no word on how they work or how easy they'll be to cast. Sounds like both Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees have had some love too. Still can't see how the Banshees will make it into combat though, even if they are really fast moving.

The last little bit is the Wailing Doom. We don't find out how many attacks the Avatar gets, whether he'll be more durable, faster or given a new model but we do know some things about his sword. Nothing that drastic here. It's what you'd expect from it really. Dealing D6 damage will make a huge difference when the Avatar is taking on a single multi-wound model but won't stop him getting stuck wading through a pile of weaker models though. At least Morale might help him there.

Sidenote: has combat resolution gone then? Do you just roll for Morale at the end of the game if you lost models? Can you still overrun units? Have they already told us this and I've missed it?

Anyway, as an anti-tank weapon it's pretty decent but isn't likely to be one-shotting anything substantial. Taking a chunk of wounds from an MC is a massive upgrade for the Wailing Doom (and indeed the meltagun) though.

Faction Focus - Chaos Daemons
Easily the most significant bits of info in this post out of the lot. It really seems like GW are trying to release more and more information in these posts. I mean, I'm assuming they schedule these posts like I'm doing with mine but it's interesting that they're getting more and more meaty.

I like the Khorne mechanic of what is effectively Furious Charge in this Initiative-less world. Interesting that it works in the first round of combat regardless of who charged too. Tzeentch giving a bonus to invulnerable saves isn't really that new but interesting that a LoC now has 4++ and 16 wounds (although we still don't really know how invulns work). I'm sure Daemons players won't be happy but I'm pleased that splitting Horrors are being dealt with too. Having a unit that always takes at least three turns to get rid of was stupid. You can still do something similar but you'll have to allow yourself some "Reinforcement Points" for this.

Sidenote: makes me wonder what other uses Reinforcement Points have. Tervigons spawing gaunts for example. What about things that weren't freebies in 7th?

Daemonettes sound similar to Banshees in that they're striking first the majority of the time. Having said that, I'd again wonder how they're going to get their alive though. Interesting that the larger the unit the better they are too. Maybe there'll be other things to discourage MSU for other factions too.

Nurglings are getting what sounds like FNP 5+ which isn't much of a surprise but makes me wonder if other units will be losing it. Interesting ot see what Mischief Makers does. Sounds like they can do some sort of Infiltrate move.

Obviously, the big deal for Daemons came in the Points and Power Levels post with Summoning no longer giving you "free" units. So far, Daemons seem to be the army that will seem the most different in 8th. No more spamming summoned units, no more piles and piles of psychic dice to buff a single psyker, no more silly combos of characters to make incredibly resilient units. Daemons had a long period of being a low tier army. Whilst I'm really not a fan, I hope they don't get relegated back there. It's early days though and I'm not going to condemn them yet (unlike a lot of people on FB). I still think Summoning will be a useful mechanic that gives you a tactical advantage in that you can bring in the right tool for the job and that having a pile of psykers on the table will still be advantageous.

Conclusion
This all reminds me a bit of the NFL in the offseason. The hype slowly builds for all of the teams so that you really start to thing your crappy franchise (the Bears) will have any hope in the season. Then the season starts and you remember they've still got a crap roster and won't be winning anything. I really hope I'm wrong!

One thing I do like is that Reece and Frankie are writing these posts. They know more about the current meta than it seems GW themselves do. Talking about things like Screamers with re-rollable 2+ saves is at least an acknowledgement of some of the problems with the game as it is now.

I really can't see how their claims of "every unit will now be viable" (or words to that effect) can be true. There's too many units for everything to be useful. Perhaps the gap between units will be smaller but I still reckon there'll be units that get spammed whilst others still don't get used. Maybe these will be different ones to what we see now but there'll still be more preferable choices in competitive play.

Still, I'm finding myself more and more addicted to these posts and therefore more excited for 8th edition. Good job on that at least GW. Sure I don't necessarily like everything they're doing but at least they're doing something! None of us really wanted a 7.5th edition that didn't really solve the problems of 7th. We didn't want AoS (as it originally happened) either. Despite the nay-sayers on Facebook telling you other wise, this isn't AoS for 40K. They've clearly learned a lot from how that went down with people. Actually involving the community in the whole process is a massive step forward.

Cautious optimism remains.

More Thoughts on the New 8th Edition 40K Rules

We've had another week of posts on Warhammer Community about what we can expect from the new edition of 40K. There's still some info on Battle Forged armies to come on Friday but I might not get chance to post at the weekend and there's plenty to discuss already.

Shooting Phase
We've already learned quite a bit about what's changing here. Things like weapon damage, save modifiers etc. They've reinforced that you decided to Advance (like old "Run") in the movement phase you can't shoot (interestingly they've not mentioned anything about charging after Advancing though).

Interesting that you can't fire if there are enemies within 1" although it seems like this is the criteria for being locked in combat now so we'll have to see how that works out. Shooting at your combat opponent with your pistol sounds fun though. They mention again about falling back from combat. Not sure I'm a fan of this mechanic really. Depends how it works out I suppose but I'd hope there'll be at least some penalty for it.

Nice that heavy weapons are a bit more useful now. Although, to be fair in the past you couldn't fire them at all when you moved so even snap shots were a bonus. Having heavy weapons in transports is a much more viable option now though.

Cover is the big deal here though. I think combining it with a unit's armour save is a brilliant idea. A Space Marine behind a barricade should be harder to kill than one in the open. It will be interesting to see how it interacts with 2+ saves though, can they be improved past 2+? I like that they'll also only let certain units benefit from certain cover. No more Wraithknights with a toe on terrain (looking at you Matt!). It sounds like a much more elegant system already but there are still a lot of questions to be answered. For example, it's clear that Ignores Cover weaponry will still be a thing but how with Markerlights work?

Charge Phase
The first thing to note is that you'll make all your charges across the table before resolving any of the fights. It's not that dissimilar to 7th but becomes more important when we get to the Fight phase. It's also similar in that you get a 2D6" charge. The wording of the text implies that you get to move that many inches regardless of whether you successfully get into combat though. Not sure if I'm reading too much into it there though. There's still Overwatch too.

You no longer need to actually get into base contact though. That seems a strange thing to change but perhaps it'll make more sense when we've got all of the rules together. It simplifies a few things like models that overlap their base but seems a bit off to me.

At this point having multiple Overwatch coming your way felt a bit OTT but it isn't really that different to now. Obviously if that first unit fails to engage then the second unit will still get hit with Overwatch but on the face of it, it isn't that drastic.

Fight Phase
This is the bit that was most important to me. I'm a massive fan of combat in 40K. The game can become dull when it's just two armies shooting it out. Having them getting stuck into a melee is much more dramatic. The initial info we got was worrying me that combat units would have an even tougher time than in 7th.

Again a reminder that the charging unit swings first. In some ways I like this idea because it makes melee units more effective. For example, Ork boyz will get to strike before marines when they charge. However, for some units it feels like a bit of nerf. I know Initiative isn't a thing any more but it made sense to me that Wyches would strike before guardsmen. I think just giving everything Hammer of Wrath would feel more fluffy. Not striking first as such but getting a bonus for charging at least.

It's interesting that you can drag other units into the fray too. I presume this is just how they're simplifying multiple combats (a lot of people still get it wrong) but it could potentially end up with a huge number of units involved, especially late in the game when units are bunched in the centre of the field.

The next bit is an interesting idea to add some decision making. You take it in turns to activate units. That sounds like you don't actually resolve a single combat for both sides and move on but rather you can jump around combats depending on what order you want to resolve them in. Still seems like charging units will strike first though so perhaps it's going to be fairly situational anyway. Clearly there's going to be ways around a lot of this with wargear and special rules but hopefully this doesn't end up too complicated.

Morale
I agree with the opening to this post that Morale is a bit clumsy currently. Having to take tests in several phases and most units passing them anyway makes the whole thing seem a bit pointless. Those weapons/rules that affected Morale felt pretty useless too. I mean, how often do you actually get to use Fear in 7th? Most things are ATSKNF, Fearless or something similar. Thing is, that feels pretty realistic to me. The majority of the armies have been fighting these battles for years so why would they suddenly be afraid when a couple of their squadmates die? I don't like the idea of things running away and regrouping. Always felt a bit daft.

Only checking once per turn is a big improvement. It's interesting that they say that very few units won't be affected. I mean, there'll be degrees of "affected" but still, good that it isn't such a bit hit for some armies compared to others. The new mechanic is simple too. (D6 + models lost) - Ld = extra casualties. It's worth looking at this in more detail though. First off, single models will never need to test e.g vehicles and MCs. Equally, units with smaller numbers and decent leadership are almost totally immune.

It's worth noting that Marines are now Ld7 though. Let's look at how they'll be affected then. Assuming you roll the worst possible result (a 6 for a change), that means the unit only needs to have lost two models to lose a further casualty. Even so, they'll be pretty resilient most of the time. Though it is worth noting that if you lost 8 of the 10 marines in a squad you'd be guaranteed to lose the other two. This is, of course, assuming that marines don't have some way round this. They surely can't get rid of ATSKNF completely? Perhaps it'll give some modifier to the roll.

Again, there's a lot unanswered but it seems like the Ld values will be slightly lower for a lot of units (Terminators were lower too). Not as profound an effect as it would be in 7th but still significant. I'm glad that falling back and regrouping are gone though. It does take a bit of the drama away mind you, having a unit fall back right up to the board edge (but staying in play) only to regroup next turn was entertaining.

A final note, and something they point out in the post, modifying Leadership will be a bigger deal than before. That opens up a whole raft of other tactics to explore.

Conclusion
Another intriguing set of posts from GW. I'm still in a bit of shock that they're doing this at all. Their community engagement throughout this whole thing has been unprecedented. It's certainly got me a lot more excited about the new edition than I would've been with salty rumours like we had in the past. It was difficult to know what to believe.

Of course, the issue now is that we're getting lots of info but not a lot of context. We don't know how a lot of the special rules will work or what ways there'll be to bypass some of the stuff they've already told us.

One thing that's struck me is there claim that they've redone the rules for every single unit in the game. That's a HUGE undertaking when you consider all the myriad armies, source material, weapons, wargear, special rules, warlord traits (are they still a thing?), etc. I'm a little nervous about this process really. Sounds like they've done a decent amount of playtesting but we never really got to find out how much they've done for previous editions to know if they've done that much more this time.

Interesting times though and I'm looking forward to what they reveal in the coming weeks. As a footnote, I'm disappointed there wasn't more in WD. I know it's the 40th anniversary edition but depending on when 8th actually comes out we might already have rulebooks pre-ordered, if not in hand, before WD lands on our doorstep.

Thoughts on the 40K 8th Edition News So Far (Week 1)

Well it seems GW are sticking to their promise of releasing new information about the 8th edition of 40K every day. Well, today it wasn't particularly rules related but for the past week we've been treated to nuggets of info about how the new edition of the game will play. Today I'll run through the officially released information that has been posted up this week on Warhammer Community. There's been the odd snippet on FB, Twitter and Faeit too which I'll touch on.

First things first. It seems from the rumours that are around that June 10th will be launch weekend. This is pretty much what I expected. Their vague suggestion of "this year" was never going to mean anything past June. To release this much info and then say "out in September" would be pointless. Basically, they'll use Warhammer Fest to reveal a chunk of new things (and maybe even the starter set) and then put pre-orders up. This makes me happy for two reasons. Firstly, we don't have to wait long but also, and more importantly, Double Trouble 2 will be the last tournament of 7th edition and will take place on launch weekend for 8th. That means we'll all be in a room together studying our new rules whilst throwing some dice together. I'll also try to theme the raffle prizes around 8th edition stuff assuming we get info on what's being released early enough.

Day One - Three Ways to Play
Nothing we didn't already know really. Open play sounds like the version of the game that I'm least likely to play. Having no restrictions at all doesn't appeal to me. The game isn't balanced even with points but just taking whatever you feel like won't make for much sport in my opinion. I was never a fan of Unbound but, hey, it's there if you're into that kind of thing.

Narrative play is something that really interests me. We're constantly talking about running a campaign or playing battles that have a vague theme to them at least. We rarely actually get round to these games though because we're normally testing something for a tournament on the rare occasion we actually have time of a game. Having a framework for playing these games might be the motivation we need to finally make it happen.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly but the version of the game that interests me the most is Matched play. I'm a mixture of relieved and disappointed to learn that the Eternal War and Maelstrom missions are returning. Hopefully they've been updated more than "a little" like the post suggests. I'd love some more interesting deployment options than the three we've gotten used to and some tweaks to the objective missions in Eternal War to stop them feeling so samey. It's a shame that things like control points (objectives you score points for controlling every turn) don't sound likely to appear. I'd be happy knowing I didn't need to buy new Maelstrom cards but also disappointed if some of them weren't fixed a little bit. Get rid of the D3 points for a start. I'm hoping they'll make the "ditch the impossible cards" rule (that most of us play anyway) official.

The talk of revisions to points values and units becoming competitive again is exciting but you'll forgive me if I'm skeptical. What I'm a little worried about is the bit about "Stratagems". They're something that's appeared in things like Planetstrike and I'm not really a huge fan of them. Feel like the Blood Bowl special play cards. I'll reserve judgement until I see them though.

Finally, they reckon a 1,000-2,000 point game takes just over two hours. That's a promising sign that the game has been streamlined. As I said before, it's nice to think we might be able to get a fourth or even fifth game into a one-day event.

Day Two - Unit Profiles
Tell me you aren't intrigued to know just how far Hormagaunts can move! I'm pleased that Movement is back as a stat. All infantry essentially moving at the same speed has always felt wrong. It's interesting that vehicles are given a profile too. Will this mean that they have differing movement values too? Maybe they can shoot everything at standard movement and limited weapons at double movement for example and a Leman Russ will move slower than a Devilfish.

Giving vehicles wounds is intriguing too. Nice that they've simplified things. Mind you, they say they're getting rid of AV but surely a vehicle will now have a Toughness value instead which will likely have a similar mechanic. There's still some residual whinging about lasguns killing land raiders but I'm sure it'll be a case of 500 might be able to strip a wound or something to that effect. Theoretically they can kill a land raider but you'd likely be wasting your time. Let's hope so at least. Imperial Knights with "dozens of wounds" sounds fun.

Having a standard system means that anti-tank weaponry should make a come back. The humble lascannon has been a rare sight of late with players favouring spamming S6-S8 firepower to strip hull points. There'll still probably be an advantage to massed fire like that but hopefully it won't be the only option. More on this in the weapon profiles bit though.

It's interesting that 'fexes are getting more wounds too. My big hope for 8th edition is that Tyranids will become instantly more viable. I'd love to own a 'nid army but I've never been able to persuade myself when they've been comparatively weak or mono-build.

I'm liking what I'm hearing about no Super Heavy rules too. This all sounds like huge swathes of the rulebook will have gone and we'll hopefully be left with a more manageable ruleset that still makes things play like we'd expect them too. That's a big ask but what we've seen so far is promising.

Onto the statlines then. The first thing to notice is that Initiative is gone. I'll wait until the Combat Phase post to get too worried about this but I do have concerns about the way melee will work in 8th. Benefit of the doubt for now. Anyway, I like that they've made Guilliman at least a little faster than a normal marine and that they've finally just printed what the rolls required are. Yeah we all know it's just 7-BS but why bother with the extra step. Modifying them is the exciting thing for me. Hopefully cover saves will work in a similar way to Necromunda and faster moving targets will be harder to hit. Jink never really sat well with me as a mechanic.

Terminators aren't, so far at least, the beasts that I was hoping they'd become. Obviously two wounds is great but I was hoping for their save being taken on 2D6 like in the old days. There's a lot of people seemingly losing their shit about how good dreadnoughts will be though. Sure they've got 8 wounds and a 3+ save now but unless something else gets released about them I'm not getting too carried away yet. Am I missing something?

Day Three - Weapon Profiles
Well, more confirmation (seemed people needed it) that templates are a thing of the past. Instead the flamer will be doing D6 shots that automatically hit. Obviously screws over single models but big units potentially benefit. No more getting out of a rhino only to have your entire 10-man unit fit perfectly under a flame template. Also, and this is important, no hitting two or more units at once. There seems to be a buzz that flamers are back but we really need to see more from the other special weapons before we get carried away.

The thing that's really upset people though is how the mass reactive rounds of the bolter don't have any extra armour penetrating power. I'm not too worried about this though. We don't know what saves things like guardsmen are going to get, we don't know how cover works and we don't even know how rapid fire works either.

As I hinted at above, I'm hoping that lascannons can make a bit of a comeback. They're an iconic part of 40K for me and they've been relegated to novelty items of late. Causing a potential 6 wounds against a vehicle, MC, character for example is a huge plus. I'm assuming that it'll effectively work like a D weapon does now. Single save against the shot and then D6 wounds lost if you fail. Anti-tank weapons should be better against vehicles and MCs and it seems like they're heading the right direction.

The interesting thing is, assuming it works like I expect, a space marine will get a 6+ save against a lascannon. Sure it'll still have a great chance of wounding him but we'll have to see what the AP is of some of the other weapons. Will old AP1 be -4 for example? Will a meltagun be -5 or more?

What's really awesome about this post is that D weapons are gone. It'll be interesting to see what profile the former D weapons get though. I'm assuming they'll still be quite likely to one-shot all but the toughest models but hopefully they'll not just be 6s to kill (pretty much) anything. It's also intriguing to find out how blast weapons will work. I might be one of few people who are pleased to see the back of the current mechanic but I hope they still feel like they're doing splash damage of some kind.

Day Four - Movement Phase
Thinking about bikes having a movement value that's much higher than infantry got me thinking about what will happen to Turbo-boost. Will they simply be able to "Advance" faster than infantry? I like the idea that flyers get different movement values too. Hopefully DE flyers will end up better than they were.

The idea of running in the movement phase is certainly going to speed the game up a little. In practice a lot of us would allow opponents to do this anyway but it does mean that the tactical decision has to be taken early. No more killing something sooner than you expected and running a unit forward who now has nothing to shoot.

Sounds like, the Movement Phase isn't going to be drastically different though. They did, however, tease something about the assault phase. You can pull out of combat in your turn. Sounds a lot like Hit & Run but without being able to shoot your assailants. No dropping out of combat in your opponent's turn and charging back in your own either. Not sure how I feel about this yet. On the face of it it'll make combat less powerful but there's still so much we don't know.

Day Five - Psychic Phase
I play Tau and Dark Eldar so my interest isn't as high as it might be but obviously my Wolves, DE and Orks care. Anyway, this new plan for psychic attacks sounds significantly better. No more throwing in some psychic battery units to boost a single powerful psyker. Seems like it'll basically be the same chance of casting a power no matter how many other psykers you have. I like that having multiple psykers is useful now. Often in 7th, one of your psykers might never actually use a power whilst another stole their dice to make it more likely to get one of their powers off.

Seems like the mechanic will work a lot like a leadership test does now. Weaker powers will be easier to get off whilst the big stuff should be requiring 11s or even 12s to cast. My only hope is that they've thought about the power levels a bit more. In 7th there were some Warp Charge 3 powers that were significantly worse than others that were only WC1.

The mechanic for blocking powers also seems sensible and cinematic. A psyker in 24" gets a chance to block the power. Presumably that means non-psychic units can't stop them anymore but that felt a bit silly anyway sometimes. Especially when a nearby friendly psyker would stand idly by and let the unit next to him be hit by a power without trying to intervene.

I'm hoping that the rulebook powers are gone. Clearly Smite remains but hopefully each faction will get themed powers rather than everyone being able to use Daemonology for example or defaulting to Telepathy to get Psy Shriek. Speaking of Smite, that sounds pretty good to me. D3 wounds that you can't stop and only needing a relatively low roll to cast it. Could be pretty nasty to have a pile of cheap psykers just throwing this out every turn.

Mortal Wounds are interesting and they confirm that invulnerable saves are still a thing. I'm assuming what were once D weapons will have a much higher chance of causing Mortal Wounds.

Conclusion
There's very little cause for concern here, well, for me at least. There's obviously a lot that we're still speculating on when we've only got little bits of info to go on. What I've seen so far though makes me think they've really put the effort in this time. No more tweaking of the existing rules and trying to make them work. If they feel like a mechanic is flawed they've simply rewritten it (e.g. casting powers). Seems like the new rules will be a lot more straightforward which is good because I also think the game will have changed quite a bit and getting used to the new rules quickly will be a bonus.

Already it seems like we'll need to rethink what units, and indeed weapons, we consider to be powerful. A shake up like this is obviously going to be good for GW's sales too which I'm certain crossed their mind in doing this. They don't really want any range of models to undersell and having pretty much everything as viable is obviously good business. Not only that but suddenly finding that your specific OP list isn't what it was will force people to buy some new stuff.

Ultimately, there's no point drawing too many conclusions just yet until we know more. They're releasing new information every day so I'm sure we'll have a fair idea of what the game is going to be like before June 10th rolls around.

Thoughts on the New Edition of 40K Q&A Session

I wasn't intending to post again so soon after the report from Battle Brothers so go back and read that if you're interested. I also want to take this opportunity to say that no matter when 8th edition is released, Double Trouble will still be using 7th edition. The event is just under six weeks away (tickets are still available...) and I don't think it's fair to suddenly change the rules for it when some of us won't have had much chance to playtest. Perhaps I'll run an event later in the year making full use of the new system once we've all had more time to get to grips with it.

Right, this post is just a collection of thoughts I had after watching the Q&A video that GW posted on Facebook. You should go and check that out first if you haven't already. This post might seem a bit randomly ordered but it's the order I thought of things as they were talking about them. I've tried to add headings to make it easier to follow but they're a bit vague. Anyway, here goes...

Movement
I'm really pleased that movement values are back. It feels a lot more realistic that everything moves at a different speed. Sure the different unit types moved differently e.g. bikes and jump units but all of the footslogging stuff moved 6". That doesn't make sense to me. I imagine Terminators being slow but tough and wyches being lightning fast but flimsy. Obviously they tried to incorporate this with initiative and things like Fleet but it never really felt right. It also will hopefully simplify things a bit. That might not initially make any sense but I think a lot of the special rules won't be necessary any more which will save a lot of book work during the game to look up the less common ones. I'd welcome any system that doesn't require me to constantly check the rulebook/codex for things I don't remember clearly.

Morale
I know the morale check thing is kind of old news now but I haven't had much chance to thing about it. I like the idea that units don't fall back anymore. Well, that's assuming they don't eventually do so. All of the models in the game have supposedly been fighting these wars for years (if not centuries or even millennia) yet they fall back when a handful of their squad die. It's one thing making a tactical withdrawal but having no say in it and legging it off the field never felt quite right. Obviously some units bypassed this but a lot that should've didn't e.g. CSM. At first glance the new mechanic seems strange:

"Roll a D6, add that to the number of models your unit has lost this turn, subtract your Leadership and take that many additional casualties"

The problem is we're thinking of applying it in our current system. They've said in this latest video that stats are no longer capped at 10. Let's say Space Marines are Ld 12. They'd need to lose 7 models before they lost anything and that's assuming you rolled a 6. That would make them effectively fearless without needing a rule for it. An Ork unit might get better leadership depending on how many models are in the unit at the time of being shot at. Would make sense from a fluff point of view too. Basically, like a lot of things there's a wait and see element but this sounds promising.

Vehicle/MC Damage
Vehicle/MC damage charts are yet more evidence that they're returning to a lot of the ideas from the earlier editions. I only hope that having a chart for each vehicle/MC doesn't get too complicated. It'd be nice if they release a PDF of all of these so you can print them out and have them to hand. If not I'm sure some enterprising person will make some - might even be me! We'd definitely need some way of keeping track of these things. It sounds more fun though. Obviously it was there in the current edition but taking out a dreadnought's legs feels more thematic than just immobilising it. Hope this pans out as well as I think it will. The most important thing is HP is gone so you'll actually feel like you're hampering a vehicle by doing some damage to it rather than it being at full strength with 1 of it's 9 HP remaining!

Having a damage chart for each individual vehicle is an interesting idea. I like that vehicles get weaker the more damage they take. Let's face it, this was the old system that they're basically bringing back. My concern is that it'll over-complicate things and it'll be difficult to keep track of what damage has been done. It's certainly more fun though to think that you're ripping an arm off a dreadnought or damaging the tracks on a tank than simply stripping hull points.

Damage, Templates, Modifiers, etc.
I was initially concerned about their comment that everything can hurt everything. Whilst I know it's frustrating to feel like your army can literally do nothing to your opponent (this happened with my Venoms this weekend against Astra Militarum), it doesn't make sense that a poxy lasgun could damage a tank with incredibly thick armour or shielding. However, it seems their bringing Damage back as a stat for the guns. If you aren't familiar with it, check out the Necromunda/Shadow War rules. It was instead of instant death and it's a much better system. Be interesting to see how it all works out and interacts together.

Speaking of which, modifiers to hit sound like they're back which I'm in favour of. If that takes away things like cover saves from the game then I'm happy. It's stupid that my space marine in the open is as easy to hit as one who can barely be seen in the gaps in a barricade. He'd be taking his armour save most of the time anyway! Cover really doesn't feel cinematic enough to me. It always felt much better in Necromunda and early 40K though. Making me want to flick through my old rulebooks to see what they've borrowed. Perhaps I will when we finally get 8th. I've got 2nd, 3rd, 5th & 6th on the shelf above my head.

One of the things I'd hoped would return from the old editions were the other dice! Bring me back my D20! If stats are going to go above 10 then I think a D6 system will be too limiting. It'd also be a good opportunity to flog us some dice and give a bit of variety to things. On that subject, I'm probably one of the few people in favour of the removal of templates. Of course their an iconic part of 40K, I get that, they're limiting though. They've never felt quite right to me either. A flamer isn't filling the room with gouts of flame, it's kept them in a very neat teardrop instead. A space marine with a frag missile can't hit something 10 feet in front of him because it scatters away. Whilst scattering back onto yourself is entertaining it doesn't make much sense. Templates/blasts have always been a source of argument at tournaments too so anything that minimises that has to be a good move.

The biggest thing for the removal of templates though is that deployment will be significantly quicker. Not having to spend time spreading out your unit whilst avoiding the scenery etc is a bonus. When I've played games against lists without any blasts it's refreshing to just plonk the models down and get on with it. Anything that makes games quicker whilst also making things feel like they should is fine by me.

Faster Games
Speaking of quicker games. I love the idea that a game could be done in 90 minutes. That might mean we could get four or even five games into a single day tournament. That makes a big difference to Swiss Pairs for a start. We might have to all accept that things don't feel as resilient as they used to though. More decisive battles would be cool. We played some Armada this week and it's limited to six rounds to the damage comes thick and fast and ships are blown up pretty quickly when things fall right. I wish 40K were that dramatic. Of course it is at times but often you're chipping away at a huge fearless unit for several turns or combats drag on for the whole game. Having epic games that take a whole day to play are part of the joy of 40K at times but when it's a one-sided affair at a tournament and it drags on for two hours after the point you know you've lost is no good for anyone.

Command Points and FOCs
I'm intrigued by command points but perhaps a little worried that they'll be the thing that gets exploited. It'll add a new tactical dimension having a pool of command points and deciding when to spend them for maximum effect. Having different ways to spend them depending on faction is a nice idea too. I also like that FOCs are still there but there'll be more to choose from. I can only pray that they don't feel like Formations. If the only bonus is command points then they probably won't but only time will tell. From the snippets we've got so far it does sound like there'll be less opportunity to break the game. Supposedly all of the myriad units in the game will be useful in some way. I'd welcome this but I'm hugely skeptical that this is possible without removing some of their identity in the process.

Melee
I really hope close combat can come back to the fore. Recently, apart from a couple of exceptions, it's all been about shooting. Combat has always been my favourite part of any game and it's frustrating that a lot of my favourite combat-centric units aren't much use at the moment. The charging unit hitting first makes huge sense! Obviously there's Hammer of Wrath but it doesn't really feel right.

Allies and Filth
Sounds like they've reduced the opportunities for creating dirty combinations. That's a good thing to me. Allies are all well and good but they've stripped away a lot of the identity of the armies. Dark Eldar for example have been reduced to a means to webway our wraithguard into a battle. I'd have preferred them to get rid completely but I wasn't really expecting this to happen. Seems like they're still there but there'll be a big benefit to taking an army from a single faction. Reducing the number of combinations might sound like a road to monotony but the game at the moment is almost impossible to keep track of for those of us who don't play several times a week.

Conclusion
It was funny watching the comments coming in on FB as I was watching it back. As ever with these things there's going to be hordes of people overreacting to the snippets of information that we've got without seeing the rules as a whole. I think that's the key thing here. Wait until you've got the rules in your hand and have had time to digest them before you start burning your models (yes, I know it was a parody). As a community we like to make snap judgements on things. I know I'm making positive assumptions here too but I think that's healthier than all of the negativity around at the moment.

I'm reassured to hear that it sounds like there's been hours of playtesting which wasn't just in-house. I'm sure the old editions were playtested too but clearly they're bothering to think about how all of the rules will affect all of the armies and their individual units. That's got to be a good thing even if they don't get it quite right straight away. I'm a little insulted that it sounds like most of the playtesters were American. I know the tournament scene is bigger in terms of volume of players there but still. I like Reece and Frankie from Frontline though. Their ITC system has really helped standardise things over there. I don't agree with all of it but still, it's a step in the right direction.

I actually enjoyed blogging about this stuff. I'd like to return to my codex review style posts when the new stuff comes out. Make it easier for everyone to get to grips with things (including myself).

In summary, I'm cautiously optimistic. The idea of regularly updated rules with full community involvement is what we've all been asking for. BB has definitely benefited from a "living" rulebook and I think 40K will too. Let's just try to take 8th as a clean slate and not spend too much time making negative comparisons to the current game. 40K is far from perfect in it's current guise!

New factions!! I hope they really mean that. Not just a new chapter of Space Marines. Would be cool to rediscover some of the lost legions though....

Games Workshop's 40th Anniversary Celebration

Matt, Scott and I headed down to Nottingham on Sunday for Games Workshop's 40th birthday celebrations. I didn't bother with the open days this year but since this was a free (but ticketed) event I figured why the hell not? The deal was sweetened by the fact that the ticket included free entry to the exhibition hall. We'd only been recently but I knew there were new HH dioramas and more excitingly for me a Tau vs Admech one which you can see below and right.

We didn't anticipate there actually being much to see and do so we also took some miniatures for a relaxed 1,750 pt game of my Orks vs. Matt & Scotts' combined AM and BA force. What better way to celebrate GW's birthday with a classic clash between Orks and the Imperium. I'll report the battle in full in the next post so it doesn't get lost in this one.

Well, upon seeing what GW had to offer us we were fully expecting to be home by lunch time! In the main hall, along with the usual permanent shops, they'd got the events team's Nick Bayton playing Warhammer Quest with people, some kitbashing tables, a FW stall selling some new stuff and their existing range plus a sale (!) table selling off some old kits for 50% off. The latter sounds a lot more exciting than it actually was. What it basically came down to was dead stock that they were trying to flog. The old finecast assassins, the small format codices (clearly a bad idea), the fluff and art books that came with the 7th edition rulebook, the Imperial Knight Companion book and a pile of fantasy stuff (which may or may not have been any good - I have no idea). There were some t-shirts on sale too but I wish GW would make some more subtle ones. I'm not ashamed of my hobby but I don't need an enormous SW symbol across my chest. Tacky.


Through Bugman's and into the dining hall and we found the Studio section. Here there were some of the classic old models which made me wish I still had my Predator Annihilator and Terminator Captain. There was also Jes Goodwin with some of his oldest sketchbooks. I got a chance to chat to him about some of the new stuff that's remakes of his and he said he has mixed feelings. Some of them are an improvement because of the technology coming on but not all of them! There was also some tables with the guys who have created the exhibition dioramas. One of the painters said he can knock out a finished Stormcast Eternal in about 25 mins. Granted he's airbrushing a basecoat of gold and then washing first but still, I'd barely have the blue on in 25 mins! I'm gonna have to time myself next time I paint! It was interesting to see pictures of the displays evolving from piles of cardboard into the finished project. I got a chance to chat to them and ask for more stuff dying or more bodies at least! They said the new Tau board has more (which it certainly did - as you can see in the pictures).

Finally, we were treated to the new Raven Guard FW HH kits including Corax. Have to say I love those models. Far more exciting for me though was the new human and orc Bloodbowl players that I'm sure you've seen on other sites by now. I wish they'd be more specific on when they're hitting though with "coming next season" being irritatingly vague. The models certainly seem like early mock ups but you just never know with GW. Anyway, that little lot only took us about 45 mins to get around so we were convinced we'd struggle to fill the day.

That was until we walked across the car park to the licensed video game displays. Firstly, it felt better because it was in a building I've never ventured into before (sad I know) but also because they've got a great range now. I was disappointed not to see Freeblade but I suppose it's already released (if not on Android). Anyway, Eisenhorn was the first game we came across. It's not a finished game yet but I think part of the problem for me is that I haven't read the books (they're on my list) so it wouldn't mean a lot to me. Matt had a go though but wasn't particularly blown away. There was also a version of Talisman set in the Horus Heresy. I had a go but it basically felt like I was just clicking and rolling virtual dice but not really interacting. I did get a free copy of the original Talisman though so I'll give that a go and perhaps that will help me understand it better. It's difficult to get a feel for the game from 5 mins of play.

Matt had a go at the Vermintide game and said it was easily the best of the bunch. It's a co-operative first person game which Matt described as Left 4 Dead with Skaven instead of zombies and bows and arrows instead of guns. Sounds good already. We also chatted to the guys from Derp Studios about their Tactical Objectives app. It's a nice little app for keeping track in Maelstrom games but if you've already bought the cards £4.99 for the basic app (with original deck and Cities of Death deck included) is steep, especially when each faction is £2.99 on top. Cheaper than the physical cards and a nice idea but I think I'll stick with the cards I already own.

The big deal for me though was the presence of Creative Assembly with their Total War: Warhammer game. It's been on the edge of my radar since I'm torn in my emotions towards it. On the one hand it's Total War and I lost weeks of my life to the first Rome game but it's Fantasy and I just don't know enough about it to be instantly excited. They did a 30 minute presentation on it though and within about 5 minutes I was blown away.

The first thing that strikes you is that clearly the people making it have a lot of love for the source material. They've either done their research or else, like the guy doing the presentation, are players themselves. They've taken time to make the factions feel unique and get their individual personalities across. The flythrough was from the Greenskinz perspective. I was particularly impressed with the effects of conquering a dwarven settlement and seeing it "orcified" with glyphs and gubbinz. I could go on about how good this game looks and how much of my life will probably be lost to it but I think the main point is that it looks like all the good things from Rome I without the crap from Rome II. They've clearly come a long way in terms of their understanding of what players want and the interface is much more intuitive. We didn't see battles in action (although people could play them) but what we saw of the world map is really impressive stuff. I'll probably wait for a Steam sale to pick it up but it's going on my wishlist right now (literally). Here's a Youtube video of what we saw in the run through so you can judge for yourselves.

Once we'd left the video game section it was lunch time so a quick burger later and we started on our game. Since we weren't exactly rushing we only just got enough time to look around the exhibition but still enough for me to take tons of pictures of the Tau.

Conclusion
Well, considering it was free entry the bar was set pretty low but I have to say I had a great day. This was in no small part down to the 40K game we played (more in the next post) but I was blown away with the video game demonstration. GW definitely got something right when they realised they need to do more licensing. It did make me wish I'd thought of a tactical objectives app though!

The main thing for me though was the startling divide being GW policy and the policy of the video game companies. These guys, particularly Creative Assembly, really know how to make you want to buy a product or even preorder it. The major difference is they're showing us work in progress stuff. We aren't talking a measly two Bloodbowl models, we're talking playable versions of new games. That's such a huge breath of fresh air at Warhammer World. We're so used to being teased with stuff or having information drip fed to us that you begin to forget how other companies do it. I left feeling far more excited about the third party products than anything GW themselves were doing.

That's a really sad state of affairs and one I can't forgive GW for at all. Why the hell didn't they have an early playtest version of Bloodbowl for us to play? It's free playtesting feedback for them from people who aren't being paid to have an opinion. I just can't for a second understand their secrecy policy. No-one is going to copy what they're doing who hasn't already. Dreadball already exists so who cares if people know what to expect from the new Bloodbowl! Why weren't they even teasing more stuff from the specialist games. Why do we have to wait for "rumours" all the time, most of which GW blatantly "leak" themselves.

It was an interesting juxtaposition of one of the best games of 40K I've played in a while set in a backdrop of minimal effort from GW. With the exception of the free cake, it really didn't feel like a celebration of their past. It's a total opportunity missed. Bloodbowl was one of their earliest creations and they weren't showing off it's remake at an anniversary event!! Seriously, who runs their marketing department?? The day just felt like a bit of an afterthought, someone realised it was the 40th anniversary so they figured they ought to do something to commemorate it.

We had a great day but we had to "forge our own narrative" to do it, I guess that's why GW wants us to do!

Anyway, come back later in the week for our battle report and then I promise I'll get onto some Double Trouble discussion.

Blog Wars X Update - And Then There Were Two...

This latest update is a story of the number two. Firstly that the three people who have attended ALL nine of the previous Blog Wars events will be reduced to two for Blog Wars X. Both Chris Benstead and Graham Sanders will be in attendance but sadly Matt Greenwood won't be completing the unholy trinity this time out. Unfortunately the timing of BWX coincides with the birth of his second child (well around that time anyway) so he won't be able to make it this time. Both Matt and I are pretty gutted but obviously it's for a fantastic reason so we won't dwell on it too much.

That means there's a second "2" to talk about than that's the final two spots left on the Blog Wars X attendees list. That's two tickets left so if you'd like to come along to the event you'll need to act pretty quickly. Head on over to the BWX page to find the details of how you can do that.

If you've already secured your place at BWX then keep an eye on the blog for the next couple of weeks as I'll be going through a few bits and pieces that I've been thinking about. Also I'll need to make some decisions if and when we get a new Tau book. I remind you all that any questions you have about the rules pack or general rules queries are always welcome.

Blog Wars 9 Completely Sold Out!

Well I never thought I'd be saying this but I've sold the full complement of 50 tickets for Blog Wars (including my own spot at #50). Even allowing for a few dropouts it's going to be a record attendance for a Blog Wars event and I'm already excited about the prospect. I'm confident that with the changes I've made to scoring and organisation I'll still be able to keep the event running smoothly and as close to time as humanly possible. 

I'll be publishing more details of the prizes on offer for those lucky enough to attend the event and I'm in talks with a couple of sponsors to add even more to the stack of prizes. I'm sure this will be the best Blog Wars ever. There's a great mixture of new guys and veterans as ever and that will help keep it feeling like a close atmosphere even with the higher than normal player count.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support this event!

Codices without a Special Character
I've just added an extra paragraph into the rules pack which says:

"these codices are exempt from the compulsory SC rule (since they don't have any options). A Character unit must still be chosen as the "Commander" for Blog Wars mission purposes e.g a Shadowseer for Harlequins. In the case of Imperial Knights this will always be the same unit as the Warlord. The units are still worth 100 bonus BPs in the first mission but DO NOT receive the Objective Secured rule in missions 2 and 3."

Basically I realised that I was preventing anyone from running Harlequins or Imperial Knights as their Core force simply because they don't have an SC to include. I could have insisted that an Imperial Knight player uses Gerantius but that seems a little too prescriptive. Please note the last line though. Since you aren't being forced to take an SC I didn't think it was fair for you to benefit from the Objective Secured bonus in the objective missions in the same way that other players would who'd tailored their list around an SC. 

GW is making it harder to keep my SC rule but it's a big part of the identity of the event and I'm keen to stick with it as long as it seems feasible. At the moment there are only three armies which are eligible as Core forces but don't have an SC within their codex. These are Harlequins, Militarum Tempestus and Imperial Knights (plus Iron Hands from the SM codex). If the rumours are true about Skitarii (and there are pictures so I'd expect they are!) then I suspect they'll need to be added to this list too.

If you can think of any books I've forgotten or have any other comments about this change please let me know below.

I'm hoping not to need to make any further changes to the rules pack as I know people like to plan their army well in advance to make sure they have everything painted. Of course, some things are out of my control though as who knows what GW will have thrown at us by June!

Announcing the F.A.T Mat Giveaway Winner!

As you may have already read, I ran a little competition to celebrate achieving a whopping one million pageviews on From the Fang. I asked people to post in the comments with the reasons they should win with humour taking precedent over sob stories. I received 30 entries but there could be only one winner....

Well, before I announce that let me thank everyone who commented and highlight some entries that I particularly liked:

• Knight of Infinite Resignation - I was tempted by the idea of a folk song which sampled the sound dice make rolling on a F.A.T. mat (which is strangely satisfying by the way).
• Capnmoe - made me laugh and had a great origin story for the F.A.T. mat name. With hindsight I wish I'd asked people to give me what they thought F.A.T stood for (yes I know the real answer).
• Greg Hess - for being the most prolific commenter in the whole blogosphere as far as I can tell at least. Also extra credit for using the phrase "think of the children".
• Casey Roberts - for brutal honesty
• Toxteth O'Grady - for some awful jokes but unfortunately I'd heard them all.
• Sonsoftaurus - for writing a poem/song. I'm not sure if I should recognise it though?!?!
• Gene Steff - for finding a unicorn, by which I mean a hot wife/gf who is interested in playing 40K
• Thomas Jeffrey - because the Grey Knights and Ultramarines ARE pompous!
• Thanagar - another successful unicorn hunter. If only I could get my wife interested...

Anyway, without further ado the winner is.....

ROBERT HILL!!!!

Here's his winning comment:

"It was a cold and stormy night. The wind blew hard and the rain lashed like nails from the sky, the very power of the God Emperor stinging your face as you marched resolutely through the darkening gloom. This was the end of all things, stripped of honour and stripped of life as no life was worthy without the honour it belied. The Emperor was dead and the Imperium shattered.

Fools! You cursed to the air and the elements flashed, lightening wrought across the sky as if you controlled the earth and the heaven but for one brief moment. Hands as agonised claws, stretched upward in a vicious embrace, straining to pull back time from the warp to feel the flow of fate and grasp hold of that one point. That solitary pivotal point where all had turned and the collapse of the Imperium of Man had begun. The tide had turned and hell had flowed in the arteries of man.

But to no avail. Crushing despair hits you as you reach the peak of this lonely mountain on this forgotten backwater world. Armour sundered, bolter broken, remorse all but spent; you collapse to your knees on one final agonising gasp and if anyone were around to hear the final mutterings of the the Great Fang they would have heard but a regretful whisper:

"I should have given that snowy Fat Mat to Rob Hill"

And then all was darkness and the fall of man was complete...

So you know... Dire conseqences should you not heed this warning!!"

I think you'll agree that he's a clear winner (unless you're a runner up of course, then you might disagree). A lot of effort went into the comment and frankly I don't want to be responsible for the death of the Imperium. Not that I'm particularly fond of it mind you! Anyway I think it's pretty clear he wants the Alpine mat.

Robert if you could get in touch with my using the contact me link I'll sort you out with your mat. Thanks again to everyone who reads the blog and who knows I might run a competition again some time.

One Million Pageviews and a Competition to Celebrate!

Sometime around midnight on Saturday/Sunday the blog went in excess of one million views! Doesn't sound much in internet terms but it still blows my mind to think about it. Of course a lot of those views will be for images but at least some of them will have actually intended to view From the Fang. In fact a decent proportion of my hits come from people searching "from the fang" on Google.

I'd like to thank everyone who's visited the site over the last three and a half years of it's existence. If you'll allow me to blow my own trumpet for a minute, I'm even prouder of the views since this is pretty much a one man ship. Of course, Matt has contributed two of the codex reviews and the odd battle report but generally speaking it's my own work.

Anyway, suffice to say I wouldn't still be blogging if no-one was reading it so as a little thank you to you all I'm going to be running a competition. The prize will be one of Frontline Gaming and Table War's F.A.T mats (formally Megamat). The winner will be able to choose from one of five designs:

I own the "Alpine" mat which I bought as part of the original Kickstarter. I've been 100% happy with my purchase. Seriously, these things are awesome. They're basically mousemat material which means they're pretty waterproof (though I haven't dared test this yet - there are videos showing it though) and have a real quality feel to them. The thing I like most though is how dice sound on them. I know that seems a ridiculous thing to say but seriously it's a nice noise! They now come in a fancy bag too:

Anyway, you're probably wondering how you can win one. Well originally I was going to say just post any old comment below but instead I want to here why you think you should be the winner. I don't want any sob stories, this is not the X Factor! Instead I want you to make me laugh and perhaps even demonstrate why you're such a die hard reader of FtF. That's all there is to it! I look forward to reading your responses!

Even More Stuff on eBay!

Just another quick plug for the continuing clear out of my surplus 40K stuff. Most of this stuff comes from Stormclaw again but there's also stuff from other random kits. Here's what's on offer this week:

• 5th Edition Rulebook (small format)
• Ork Nobz (new on sprue)
• 2 lots of Ork Gretchin (new on sprue)
• 10 Ork Boyz with Nob (new on sprue)
• 10 man Space Wolves Pack (Grey Hunters/Blood Claws/Wolf Guard) (new on sprue)
• 5 Wolf Guard Terminators (new on sprue)

You can find them all here. Thanks for looking and happy bidding! There'll be even more stuff going up over the coming weeks to it's worth keeping an eye on my eBay page!

Donations Welcome!

I've thought long and hard about this but I've finally decided to add a Donations button to the blog. Allow me to explain why.

Affiliate Schemes
For the first couple of years of From the Fang I didn't have any advertising at all on the site. It used to annoy me seeing banners all over my favourite blogs and so I wanted to avoid them on From the Fang. Eventually I succumbed though and started to run adverts for Wayland Games and Total Wargamer. These were part of their affiliate schemes with gave me a small percentage of any sales that were generated as a direct result of clicking on a banner on FtF. Over the time I've had banners on the site I've probably only had about £20 from Wayland. Not bad but clearly not much over the time period. I had sales with Total Wargamer too but despite chasing them up they still haven't paid me the commission I was owed.

Frankly I don't really like to advertise either company.  I don't use them myself as Dark Sphere offer 25% discount so if I'm making a large order I use them (as they charge for postage). Alternatively, if I'm just picking up the odd box or a codex I head to my FLGS, Wargames Emporium, who offer 20% off and since I don't need to pay for shipping it works out cheaper than DS. Anyway, neither of these companies have Affiliate Schemes so by recommending them I don't make a penny, but you should still check them out!

Anyway, the point is that I'm barely making anything from affiliate schemes and I'm not particularly fond of the companies so I'm going to remove their banners from the site. In fact I've done just that right now.

Google Adsense
Once again, I resisted using this for a long time and it's probably only been about the last six months that I've started using their ad content. So far I've made something like £30 which is better than I've done with affiliate schemes for a much longer period. Still, when you think about it that's something like 16p a day. Hardly a living wage eh? I'm also not a huge fan of their system of targeted ads. It scares me sometimes that I get adverts for something I searched for. It's an obvious revenue stream for Google and I don't think anyone is naive to it anymore but it just doesn't feel right somehow. That being said I now use the excellent Ghostery and Adblock on my Chrome to avoid tracking and to block any site ads. If the ads on FtF annoy you I heartily recommend you install Adblock to your Chrome so they vanish. I'm sure there are similar apps for IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.

A Brief History of FtF
I started this blog as a means of cataloguing the games of 40K we played between our little group of friends. It's been an online diary of my gaming since getting back into 40K after a long absence in my late teens/early 20s. From that it's evolved into something more though. Still, I never expected anyone to read my blog and I'm amazed that I'm currently averaging around 1,500 pageviews a day! That's still nothing compared to some blogs but remember I'm doing this solo. The problem is that it takes quite a while to write a post (since I usually write too much). My recent series on the Ork codex took around an hour per post. That's because I have to sit with the old and new codex to compare and find the changes and have a rulebook on hand for those rules I can't remember off the top of my head etc etc.

As I've said before I write those posts for my own benefit as much as anything else. By blogging about a new codex I really start to understand it and it forces me to think about how the units might perform. These are by far my most popular posts with the peaks in my pageviews corresponding to the Tau, Eldar, SM, Tyranid, and Ork reviews I've done recently. I'd like to carry on with these (and maybe finally finish my AM review) but with my little boy I find I have less time for the hobby in general. I've barely lifted a paintbrush this year despite my incredibly optimistic targets I set myself in my hobby resolutions post! When I get some spare time I tend to sit and blog. Usually because it's dark and I like to paint with natural light but also because GW are releasing stuff at a relentless pace now and I feel like I need to keep the reviews going.

Anyway, back to the point (if ever there was one) and the TL:DR version if you like. From the comments I receive and the emails I get it seems like people are enjoying my reviews. If you've found a review useful or you've generally enjoyed what I write and you'd like to donate something to show your appreciation then now you can. If you don't want to that's fine, thanks for reading anyway. I'm not for a second forcing anyone to pay to read the blog, just giving people that option if they feel they want to. I'm not going to call it something daft like "buy me a beer" because we all know I'll spend the money on plastic crack!

I'm not trying to make a living from blogging, far from it, if I can buy the latests books and the odd kit here and there then great. If no-one donates then it won't stop me posting but I'll be very grateful to anyone that does. As ever, thank you for reading this little blog and I hope you all continue to do so.