State of the Union (Heresy)

[Brofist]

New alleged leaks. The reference the new tank which has been confirmed to be true, so I put some stock into these:

 

New "disintegrator" rifles, pistols, and combi-weapons mostly available to centurions and seeker sgts

Rotor cannons are Assault now with Pinning and Shell Shock (1), apparently causing -1Ld to the subsequent Pinning check

Nemesis Bolter, 72" Heavy 1, Sniper, maybe replacing sniper rifles for Legions

Thunder hammers are now Sunder instead of concussive (HELL yeah)

Dark Angels Warlord trait previously leaked as allowing to select bonuses against certain factions lists "Dark Mechanicum" as one faction

Salamanders no also have -1S to incoming plasma, melta, and volkite. -1" charge/run/sweep is gone, Morale bonus now attached to a legion specific Warlord Trait

Raven Guard split into Hawks/Talons/Falcons that confer different bonuses to different unit types

Iron Hands -1S to incoming shooting now applies to all non-vehicle units (including new MC dreadnoughts), all vehicles get 6+ It Will Not Die and Autosimulacra can increase that to 5+

Iron Hands specific reaction to overwatch at full BS twice with Gets Hot!

Iron Father's get a machinator array instead of a servo arm, have Battle Smith (3+)

Toxiferran flamers are now just Poison and Rending instead of Tainted

Flamestorm cannons are no longer AP3 but have Torrent

Volkite Calivers are Heavy 3

The Kratos is a new heavy tank that has a turret battle cannon/melta cannon/volkite turret with 4 weapons across the turret and sponsons, mostly autocannons, heavy bolters, and volkite culverins

All terminators now have two wounds!

Cataphractii and Tartaros are split into different unit profiles

Primarchs and Fortifications have their own Force Org slot

Primarchs can be taken 1 per primary detachment but count towards LoW points

Allied detachments are larger

Destroyer squads split into "Assault" and "Mortis" units

Despoiler squads return and Scout Squads added to tactical and Recon Squads as troops choices

Termites are now universal DT's like rhinos for most things (oh boy)

Most vehicles are now squadrons, including Deredeo talons, Sikarans, Whirlwinds (including Scorpius), all Sicaran variants, predators (in up to 5), Cerberus, and Typhons

Proteus Land Raider has been split into "Carrier" and "Exploratory" variants (presumably just making a different unit entry for the explorator web upgrade)

Space Wolves are getting a "Grey Hunter" unit

All weapons have been rebalanced to be viable (lets see how that goes)

Weapon S can go above 10, but is capped at S10 for wounding but "true" value is used for armor pen and ID

Twinlinked is more or less being replaced with Gravis ala 40k (double shots)

Autocannons and variants now have Rending

Astartes Shotguns have concussive

Demo cannons are AP3 but have rules to increase them above S10 for ID and armor pen

Heavy Bolters are now Heavy 4

Combi-weapons split into "magna" and "minor" types, and both halves of the weapon can be fired at once. "Magna" are melta, plasma, and disintegrator and are one shot, all other variants are not one shot (prettyuch just a cleanup of what we already knew)

Lascannons have Sunder

Gravis blast weapons just use 5" blast instead of 3" (again phasing out twin linked)

Plasma are AP4 Breach (4+), essentially 4+ Rending

Lascutters now also have an 8" S10 AP1 Armorbane shot as well as the melee attack

Speaking of melee, combat blades, chainswords, bayonets, and chain bayonets all have different profiles

Combat blades are base profile

Bayonets are +1S Two Handed

Chainswords have Shred

Chain Bayonets are +1S Two Handed Shred

(Kinda unnecessary imo but I'm not gonna complain about it)

New Charnable weapons, "tabre and stave"

Force stave and power lance have "Reach", whatever that does

Power swords are AP3 Rending, Power Mauls are +2S AP3, Axes remain unchanged

Lightning Claws have Rending, and pairing them gives +2A instead of +1A

Enjoy

[Brofist]

Some of my top level thoughts on this- seems that there is an attempt to make the game less lethal and more dice intensive (IE: you don't know the outcome exactly when you engage one unit with another). AP1 and 2 is now very rare. Personally I don't like this, because I like shorter more decisive games. We can only speculate about balance, but the changes to demo cannons are a bit strange and would imply worse AP values for battle cannons, artillery, and the like. How they plan to balance factions that rely on this for killing TEQ/MEQ such as militia and solar aux remains to be seen. These changes would make much more sense if we had the new AP system. Finally, if mauls are truly like this, they will be everywhere and I don't know why anyone would take a sword. Edited March 9, 2022 by Brofist

[Cris R]

As niche as it is, it's a shame the Flamestorm Cannon lost AP3. I have a list where I run Boxnoughts for fun and that weapon is one of the main reasons to take them since no other Dreads can run them, something that Torrent doesn't offset. I also read in one of the earlier rumors that Power Axes got an upgrade, so we'll see where that shakes out for them. And the potential Rotor Cannon changes provides an answer to this thread. Well done Astartes Consul for foreseeing this potential change.

[Rejects of Anvilus]

Wonder about points cost of terminators as somebody with an all-terminator DG army. They must go up if two wounds now, if not the army will be even better though!

 

AP3 loss on flamestorm makes me sad, for a weapon you don’t see much it gave it a nice niche. All the base melee differentiation sounds unnecessary, chainaxes/swords being different is fine, but combat blades/bayonets/etc. seems pointless. Certainly seems some of the changes are almost just to make changes, rather than solving existing issues.

[Brofist]

Yeah, 2w terminators in a meta where AP2 is rare will make things into a meatgrinder unless they up their points and make them more rare. They only really fear melta and lascannons from what we know. Maybe some niche vehicle weapons?

 

Honestly the more I think about it, the more I wish we got the new AP system

 

e: though after talking to some people the new AP system didn't shake out very well in the new 40k editions, so maybe we're being saved from it

Edited March 9, 2022 by Brofist

[Noserenda]

Some of thats good, some of it feels like mild bloat for the sake of it, or padding the book by having multiple near indistinguishable datasheets. Fortifications does bring up the question of whether they will support the prior range, and to what degree.

[Slips]

 

IF's +1 to Bolter and Auto weapons looking better and better each time.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Slips

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

it does kinda feel like these rules are trying to level the playing field in terms of weapons profiles somewhat, pruning back the most destructive options and boosting the less picked weapons, hopefully with a balance pass over different units it should make a much wider selection of units & builds viable

concussive shotguns are intriguing, could be fun to run an aggressive recon squad for 'mopping' up damaged units, given they'd get to hit first in melee after shooting so their single bolt pistols might not just get them butchered in close combat

 

it'll also be interesting to see whether lightning claws, power swords and autocannons all gaining rending will fill the void of plasma weapons only being AP2 50% of the time

Edited March 9, 2022 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[Cris R]

it does kinda feel like these rules are trying to level the playing field in terms of weapons profiles somewhat, pruning back the most destructive options and boosting the less picked weapons, hopefully with a balance pass over different units it should make a much wider selection of units & builds viable

 

concussive shotguns are intriguing, could be fun to run an aggressive recon squad for 'mopping' up damaged units, given they'd get to hit first in melee after shooting so their single bolt pistols might not just get them butchered in close combat

 

it'll also be interesting to see whether lightning claws, power swords and autocannons all gaining rending will fill the void of plasma weapons only being AP2 50% of the time

 

 

Definitely agree. Another thought: if Blackshield Marauders can continue using shotguns and have access to largely the same Wrought by War abilities, the Gene Bulked and Berserker Chymeriae abilities will be especially nasty if you can get a charge in if you're successful with concussive. In the former's case, the shotguns would help mitigate the -1 to initiative while the latter would let the squad do some serious damage to another unit before it has time to hit back. We need to see their rules and how Reactions can help your opponent avoid these scenarios but it's combinations like these that hopefully make list building interesting in HH 2.0.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Cris R

[Brofist]

Seems there's more an emphasis on attrition, with a bunch of basic gear getting re-rolls or rending type effects, which is totally thematic.

 

Alas, I wonder if I would take an AP4 plasma pistol even for 5pts

[MegaVolt87]

I hope tac squads can take chain bayonet's, love that. Power sword is lacking, maybe have it grant +2 attacks instead of one if paired with an eligible weapon instead of the traditional +1 bonus. The power curve definitely flattened with some glow ups to encourage diversity. I am curious what points threshold the game is intended at, maybe 2k pts with the cut lethality? The favoured 3k game may drag which would suck. 

[Slips]

It looks like Rending might be changing to a sort of Rending (X) rule; where x is the number you need to roll to trigger Ap2.

 

So we could see weapons with rending 6+ or rending 4+

[sarabando]

Deredeo talons urgh I'm gonna need more dune crawler legs

[Brofist]

I hope tac squads can take chain bayonet's, love that. Power sword is lacking, maybe have it grant +2 attacks instead of one if paired with an eligible weapon instead of the traditional +1 bonus. The power curve definitely flattened with some glow ups to encourage diversity. I am curious what points threshold the game is intended at, maybe 2k pts with the cut lethality? The favoured 3k game may drag which would suck.

Hard to say the points level right now. Predators cost notably more, for example, though they now have an extra 2 shots and rending on the top turret (forced sponsons though, which sucks). I doubt terminators will remain the same price given how much stronger they seem to be.

[Noserenda]

Personally the bayonets are the worst thing ive heard about these rules so far, mostly because they are kind of a not backwards compatible/modeller hostile wysiwyg nightmare. It also feels weird that the chain bayonet is arguably better than a dedicated chainsword (Against tough things and vehicles) though im guessing mathammer usually favours an extra attack with a pistol? 

[Mogsam]

Suddenly my 10 man power maul squads are even more deadly

[TheTrans]

No mention of anything other than marines worries me.

Do we fear that they are just going to marine-sausagefest 30k (even more so than it is now)? 

[Spagunk]

No mention of anything other than marines worries me.

 

Do we fear that they are just going to marine-sausagefest 30k (even more so than it is now)? 

Hi, welcome to Horus Heresy. Are you new here?

 

Just kidding, of course. I would say that everything I've seen suggest marines now, everyone else later in supplements. I am envisioning something like Adeptus Titanicus style.

[TheTrans]

Not ideal haha, running an event in April (so no worries about being 2.0 then) but out of 40 odd attendees a quarter of the field are non-marine. Bit of a big hit leaving them all out in the cold for god knows how long. Surely they'd hit us with a index style release?

Or even at the start is it going to come down to the community to get :cuss sorted haha. 

[Slips]

Heavy Bolters going to Heavy 4 definitely makes me fell less bad about my Sniper-Era Bolter Vet Squad.

 

Primarchs getting their own FoC Slot (but still counting towards the LoW limit) is WONDERFUL because it means you can have a Primarch and a Mastodon in big games without needing to run any special detachments or make homebrewed allowances unlike, say, Perturabo and Dorn who just got to roll around like absolute Gs in their pimpmobiles.

 

 

Not ideal haha, running an event in April (so no worries about being 2.0 then) but out of 40 odd attendees a quarter of the field are non-marine. Bit of a big hit leaving them all out in the cold for god knows how long. Surely they'd hit us with a index style release?

Or even at the start is it going to come down to the community to get sorted haha. 

Its literally all down to priorities: get the largest and most populated factions done asap then get the remaining armies done after.

 

Also, we literally have no idea what they'll be releasing on launch in terms of rules beyond just making assumptions based on obvious priorities.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Slips

[Brofist]

My main armies are not marines so I feel you. Seems that they will not be part of the main launch, but that's good... lets the meta shake out and they can figure out how to balance them against it. As I wrote earlier they will need to do major reworks to the human armies given the changes to weapon balance.

[TheTrans]

Heavy Bolters going to Heavy 4 definitely makes me fell less bad about my Sniper-Era Bolter Vet Squad.

 

Primarchs getting their own FoC Slot (but still counting towards the LoW limit) is WONDERFUL because it means you can have a Primarch and a Mastodon in big games without needing to run any special detachments or make homebrewed allowances unlike, say, Perturabo and Dorn who just got to roll around like absolute Gs in their pimpmobiles.

 

 

Not ideal haha, running an event in April (so no worries about being 2.0 then) but out of 40 odd attendees a quarter of the field are non-marine. Bit of a big hit leaving them all out in the cold for god knows how long. Surely they'd hit us with a index style release?

 

Or even at the start is it going to come down to the community to get sorted haha. 

Its literally all down to priorities: get the largest and most populated factions done asap then get the remaining armies done ASAP.

 

Also, we literally have no idea what they'll be releasing on launch in terms of rules beyond just making assumptions based on obvious priorities.

Oh man if we had to base our reactions on stuff that we know as fact, we'd be forced to sit here quietly. I'm just basing low-key vexetion based off what we know and how we know GW can be. 

My main armies are not marines so I feel you. Seems that they will not be part of the main launch, but that's good... lets the meta shake out and they can figure out how to balance them against it. As I wrote earlier they will need to do major reworks to the human armies given the changes to weapon balance.

 

Man, we can e-hug it out, is a bit of a worry. 

 

My biggest..well its not a concern at this point, its almost a surety, is when they delete no-model units, what the hell is milita and cults (and daemons for that matter) left with. I think we're going to see the demise of the two biggest sandbox armies we've ever seen which is gutting. 

[Brofist]

Militia and Cults are based on the Krieg Range, which is pretty implicit in the unit entries and rules. That said, all the last chance to buy stuff? Yeah, who the hell knows.

[TheTrans]

Militia and Cults are based on the Krieg Range, which is pretty implicit in the unit entries and rules. That said, all the last chance to buy stuff? Yeah, who the hell knows.

Yet they left out the death riders? Madness! (but yes, heavy weapon squads, static arty etc) 

[Slips]

I hope y'all aren't sleeping on this:

 

 

Rotor cannons are Assault now with Pinning and Shell Shock (1), apparently causing -1Ld to the subsequent Pinning check

 

Looks like they'll still be S3 but if theyre Assault 4 now instead of salvo 3/4 then, they might actually be a worthwhile unit to have to force pinning onto units (price depending) which would prevent them from making reactions, primarily.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Slips