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Good evening, I'm new to the forums and like all of you I am going to be new to 8th Edition. I like to be competitive on a casual level, if that makes sense. I have a few concerns and queries about my army in particular and I hope to get some constructive feedback. I collect Imperial Fists heavily based on the 'Sentinels of Terra' supplement codex as well as being a drop pod assault themed army. To begin with my two main concerns are Sgt Garadon and drop pods. Sgt Garadon is my HQ of choice throughout 7th edition, he is a character upgraded from a tactical squad sergeant for a total of 75 points making the squad a HQ choice. He has the rule set of a captain and can take no additional upgrades, his wargear is simply a special bolt pistol that ignores cover called the 'spartein', a standard power fist and of-course an iron halo. He isn't in the index's or codex's for 8th edition, yet various youtubers have promised that supplements will come within the year. With the new rule (I don't know its name) to do with special characters not being able to join units? I'm not certain I will get my Sgt Garadon back at all, can anyone shed some light or education for me here? Secondly and possibly my largest concern being drop pods tripling in point cost. I currently have 7 drop pods in my 2000 odd 7th edition point list, all together I have my captain as above, 6 tactical squadrons and 3 devastator squadrons with a aegis defence line. With money always a large deciding factor when it comes to warhammer I don't want to have to replace any of my army, my main question being can i play this army at a casually competitive level or am I going to loose a lot more games? Chapter Tactics + Supplement benefits My Devastators before had a special rule known as tank hunter allowing me to re-roll wounds if they did not penetrate. Also my army was built to accommodate the boltor drill from my chapter tactics. Neither of these are in 8th edition as far as I know. Though my devastators will be able to split fire now making them more powerful, loosing these two rules has really broke the spirit of my army, and my own. Again various youtubers are convinced we will get chapter tactics and supplements within the following year, what do you think? To summarize; So far from what I have gathered specifically about my army isn't looking good. The point trade off with drop pods, loosing my chapter rules and the daunting concern of having to replace my HQ has puts me off the new edition. Not only this but there is icing on the cake, I have a really bad feeling Primaris Marines are going to replace the Space Marines completely and sadly the fluff behind it could have been better, but this is a different topic for another thread. Thanks in advance for any constructive feedback

OK went to the local shop for pre order and had a 1000 point game so i thought I'd add what I learn't I'm guessing several people will have done the same 1st off on SIA Combi-weapons don't get SIA, all combi weapons steer well clear of the word bolt completely. Its pretty understandable as well extra range & -1 default is a key stat as is 2 shots at 15", Vengeance rounds as well are going to be brutal. So Transports a Rhino has 10 hull points & a 3+ save @ T7 making it reasonably survivable but cover isn't what it was and your vengeance rounds wound it on a 5 with -2. A quick look in the books showed a lot of T6 & T7 so for normal marines plasma is going to be a pretty common theme. Using your bolt pistol in combat may seem cool but chances are your going to either kill what you charge or it will fall back and if you don't pile in in the right way your characters are exposed. I tried out a chaplain and glad I did for any unit within 6" with chapter = unit you get Litanies of Hate (Re-roll to hit) every round of combat & -1 leadership to the enemy while giving his leadership to units within 6". I didn't take a Librarian but null zone is going to be absolutely brutal and I can see why now they've priced drop pods so high if you drop down with 2/3 pods full of stuff your Watch guy for re-rolls your librarian casting null zone and a chaplain for the counter attack even without the template range your kicking out a bucket full of fire power. As a final initial thought Standard Bolter with no minus to AP is poo Get Re-Rolls if at all possible Xenopurge with -1 & 2 damage looks good but we can see the 9" come into play though this will wreck medium / light vehicles at short range as well as do a number on the new Primaris Marines & Dreads as well for that matter. Command points are really really useful like re-rolling that 6 that turned up when your Rhino was destroyed with my Chaplain in it.

So I played my first game of 8th out in the local meta(jungle). I went to a local gaming hub and it turns out that they were holding a tourney that day. I mingled a bit but then found some space to play in the back with 2 other guys. One had a hipster imperial army with Custodes, Celestine, and other assorted stuff.... I think it was a mix of guard/sisters. The other guy had a fairly beardy ultramarines list. I said hello and we just made a up a game of 2v1. I partnered with the hipster Custodes list. We barfed up an ad hoc army of mostly infantry without really adding up points. Our list was just plain bad. We had little anti air and no redundancy. The table had plenty of terrain for cover but nothing to block LOS. Our army was something like this.... HQs Celestine Shrike Troops 2 10 man Raven Guard Tacticals with tripple plasma 1 5 man tactical squad... Blood Ravens IIRC.. no wargear Fast Attack 10 man Raven Guard Assault marines with packs, 2 flamers and an eviscerator on the sarge 3 Inceptors(Blood Ravens) Elites 1 Raven Guard dreadnought with assault cannon/heavy flamer 1 Custodes contemptor Dread... not sure about the loadout... but it had 2 melee weapons 5 Custodes with a mix of spears/shield+sword Heavy Support 5 man Raven Guard devastators, 4 las cannons We faced.... UltraSmurfs in all their blue snowflake glory. Our opponents list was something like... HQ GirlyMan Primaris LT Troops 5 man primaris squad 5 man primaris squad 5 man tac squad Fast Attack 5 bikers... 2 grav guns 3 inceptors Heavy Support 2 Fire Raptor Gunships with something hideous for a loadout... Im unfamiliar with FW but the guns were high volume with a mix of low dmg and high dmg. It looked like an all purpose loadout. I dont recall what mission we played but it was a maelstrom with dawn of war deployment. There were 6 objective markers... 3 in each deployment zone. None in the middle. The Smurfs deployed with Girlyman in the middle of their deployment zone with the fireraptors in the rear. We deployed onto objectives in our zone.... with all our stuff in cover. Our ASMs and inceptors were in DS reserve. Shrike deployed in between the lascannon devs and the plasma tacs... giving both rerolls. Since our team was doubles, a format neither of us had played, we had poor coordination and a list softer than microwaved cheese. So the game started with a complete disaster with the Smurfs finishing deployment first. On turn 1 we lost our devs,1 dread, a bunch of tacs leaving us with no real way to do dmg to the Smurf flyers. In our first turn we had no effective way to target anything but we did managed to get stuck in with our inceptors/ASMs which did no dmg to much of anything. Our opponent basically just did what his list was designed to do... melt 1-2 squads/units a turn with dakka fire raptors rerolling everything. However bad our list was we did get crazy lucky on objective cards and tied the game in the bottom of turn 3... securing a "friendly" draw. We kept getting "secure objective X" when we were already sitting right on it with tacs. We also rolled flawless for "gain d3 victory points". Things that really messed us up; 1. Poor list planning... we were not redundant enough to take a punch. 2. Poor target priority. Using any shooting on the fire raptors was pointless since there was zero chance to take either down. It would have been better to take everything else out. 3. Poor list planning... we needed first turn to have an actual chance in a full game. Having 1 extra drop in the game was powerfully awful. I think if we dropped our raven guard dread and added 5 more devs into our lascannon squad and another las cannon into the 5 man tac squad that would have made a huge difference. Highlights from the game; 1. Robot Girlyman.... a fornicating bargain at 350 points. If you play ultramarines and do not take Guilliman in every list over 1500... you are dong it wrong. 2. Shrike: This guy is a complete animal. You can get some serious value parking him in the backfield and just zipping around with is jump pack to grant his reroll to hit aura and his charge reroll aura for jump packs. Additionally... you can use him to thrash units as tough as bikers in a single turn. In a single fight phase I had shrike shred 4 bikers. I can hardly wait to get him stuck into some nob bikers or other HQs. 3. Tacticals with plasma+shrike: 2 tac squads with overcharged plasma and rerolls make short work of primaris marines/bikers and can tickle a heavy flyer. 4. ATSKNF is still very good. We got bailed out by morale rerolls in every turn. Never forget this reroll. Epic Fails from the game; 1. Assault Marines with 1 weapon capable of damaging armour is obviously awful. In 7th you could justify taking an eviscerator on a sarge since he could 1 shot most vehicles with it. In 8th... this is an awful, horrible, 4th rate choice. Assault marines are objective grabbers, GEQ killlers, and skirmishers. Do not take eviscerators on them. From now on my evis sarge is wielding a chainsword or two with an eviscerator proxy. 2. If you insist on 5 man dev squads for anti tank/monster/air... you must go first. Better to spread out the guns or have 10 man squads. 3. If you bring a beardy list with heavy flyers, don't ignore objective cards. Our team secured a sporting draw because our opponent made some silly errors in the final turn. He attempted to table us which was probable but not guaranteed. By not playing the mission he failed to secure to victory. Overall it was fun and everyone was gracious and had fun. Sorry for the lack of photos and garbled description. From a gaming perspective this game just wasnt that interesting so I tried to frame it terms of what I experienced/learned out in the local 40k wilderness. More to come later. I will play some real game this week with my own list.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/6ebveo/drop_pod_rules_leaked_infantry_only/ So the new drop pods in 8th are infantry only and you choose when they deploy. Oh.. and they cost 100 points. So there is a ton of doom saying and acrimony about these changes. From my perspective as a relative newbie I think the big picture is largely positive. You can call the pods down whenever and virtually wherever you want. This means you can grab objectives in a timely manner without scatter. So we lose dreadnoughts in pods but gain reliability. Sternguard/vets in pods will be better than 7th since you wont scatter. Devastators in pods will be devastating since shooting heavy weapons after moving is now only -1 to hit. Pods themselves are durable and can probably still hold objectives. (not 100% on that one) Tacticals in pods are probably going to be really sexy also since you can load them up with all kinds of bling and split fire all over the place. I understand Blood Angel players being overcome by the black rage because of this change but for Raven Guard I think these more reliable pods are tactically superior to the old pods. You get em on time and on target, every time. Are the new pods good, bad, or otherwise?

So my Templar friend and I did a Power 70 game. I took: Captain with Relic plade and combi plas 10 sniper scouts with camo and a ML 5 bolter scouts with a HB LSS 10 Tacs with a combi plas, plas, and grav cannon Rhino Knight Crusader with RFBC He Took: High Marshall Crusade squad loaded for CC LRC Stormtalon Knight Paladin We did the Search and Destroy deployment and Retrieval mission. I wont do a play by play but LRs soak up serious damage. Knights RFBC can be puny or hilariously dangerous. Stormtalons are scary with twin assault cannons. Using rhinos to ram LRs is hilarious and effective. The new movement values are pretty cool. Contemptors are really fast. Also I really don't like the new cover system. I also want to invest in some assassins as well. Eversors assaulting from 9.01" for 3d6"(+"1") turn one is scary. Vindicares are going to mulch characters.

Brothers (and Sisters?), a couple quick questions. I've been reading through all the releases on Warhammer Community, etc., but I haven't been able to keep up with the discussion here on B&C. I don't see anything in the 8th Edition Discussion board that addresses this, although the Black Templars have been speculating a little: 1. Are we expecting chapter Codices to be released at some point, in addition to the Index books that have already been announced/leaked? (Spikey Bits says "no?" BellofLostSouls thinks "yes," in the model of AoS's Battletome) 2. Do we expect chapter tactics to be announced at some point? Maybe tied to the chapter keywords? I looked through the leaked rules, and it looks like there isn't much to distinguish chapters from each other at this point, although the leaks are only portions of each book... Other than including a a high proportion of scouts and jump units in our armies, what is going to make Raven Guard "Raven Guard" in the 8th Edition? Or any other Codex chapter, for that matter. Can anyone direct me to productive discussion of these topics?

Is it just or are assault centurions really scary? I was considering adding 3 of them and a stormraven next time I spent some $$ on models. They can each have 2 flamers and 2 hurricane bolters. I can see this being brutal against melee hordes like orks or beserker spam. They could be as a screen and placed infront of a bunch of devastators and just sit there daring the enemy to try to charge them. No one is going to want to eat 6d6 auto hits in overwatch. They could go into a stormraven and dropped off in someones backfield. I wonder how happy a guard player would be with 3 assault centurions romping around in their rear. Who else is terrified of something new or improved in 8th?

So I played my first game of 8th Edition yesterday using the new 'dex, and here are my first impressions of the table top. Armies were as follows: CT:Iron Hands Battalion + Vanguard Battalion Detachment - Captain with Terminator Armor, thunder hammer, Shield Eternal - Librarian with force sword, Might of Heroes, Null Zone - 5x Tacticals with plasma & combi-plas in a las/plas Razorback - 5x Tacticals with plasma & combi-plas in a las/plas Razorback - 10x Scouts with camo cloaks, sniper rifles, and missile launcher - Thunderfire Cannon - Thunderfire Cannon - Hunter Vanguard Detachment - Techmarine with combi-plas, full servoharness, power axe - Venerable Dreadnought with twin lascannons, fist, heavy flamer - Venerable Dreadnought with assault cannon, fist, heavy flamer - Venerable Dreadnought with heavy plasma cannon, fist, heavy flamer - Ironclad Dreadnought with seismic hammer, fist, 2x heavy flamers, and assault launchers Versus (gear approximate): CT: Ultramarines Battalion Detachment - Captain with relic blade & combi-plas - Librarian with force staff, Might of Heroes, and Veil of Time - 5x Tacticals with plasma & combi-plas - 10x Tacticals with melta, combi-melta, and multimelta in a Rhino - 10x Tacticals with flamer, combi-flamer, and heavy bolter in a Rhino - Dreadnought with assault cannon, fist, and stormbolter - 10x Tactical Terminators with cyclone missile launcher, assault cannon, a few chainfists - Land Raider Redeemer (stock) - Tri-las Predator We played Contact Lost with the table quarters deployment. Game ended after just two turns (store was closing) and a draw because I mismeasured a quarter of an inch off an objective. His deployment placed the Predator in the very back of his DZ along the short table edge, with good sight lines down the middle of the table. Dreadnought and LRR (with 5x Tacticals and the two HQs) were deployed in the middle, with the Rhinos near the mid-line of the table for an obvious flank maneuver. My deployment put the captain and all four Dreadnoughts in the middle of the table as far up as I could go for an immediate drive forward. TFCs were deployed in trenches in my backfield, with the Razorbacks and their HQ cargos split, one on each side to watch the flanks or be available to drive on objectives if necessary. The Hunter was on the side of a hill, watching over the middle of the table to contribute to anti-tank fire. The Scouts infiltrated into a bunker complex on a hill to guard the flank that his Rhinos were deployed to strike against; they were basically a speed-bump to block easy access to my Hunter. He had first turn. Dropped the Terminators right along the back edge of my deployment zone where there were coverage gaps. The heavy weapons took a few wounds off a Razorback, while one of my Techmarine gunners tanked the entirely of the stormbolter shots; failed only one armor save, and the FNP put paid to that one wound. The rest of his army pressed forward, with the Rhinos attempting a flank and the Dreadnought and LRR pushing on the center of the table. He divided his fire, scattering wounds on several different Dreadnoughts rather than focusing one down. The Rhinos put some stormbolter rounds into the Scouts and pushed one wound through their 2+ saves. He decided not to attempt a charge with the Terminators. My turn, I pushed the Dreadnought block into the middle of the table and advanced killed seven of the ten Terminators in my backfield with the two Thunderfires, the harness guns on one Techmarine, the plasma-Nought, a Razorback, and a Tactical Squad. Overcharging plasma is a wonderful thing, and the FNP saved both my Sergeant and the plasma gunner from blowing up. The rest of my fire destroyed the lead Rhino, killed all but two of its Tactical occupants, and put several wounds on the Dreadnought. I charged the Terminators with the Tacticals but he rolled well on his saves; the Librarian couldn't make the distance. In the morale phase, the remnant of his Tactical Squad ran off the board but the Terminators stayed put. His turn two, the Terminators backed off and opened fire, wiping out the rest of the Tacticals they were engaged with. He dismounted the models from his LRR and pushed that battlegroup forward to support his Dreadnought, while continuing to attempt a flank maneuver with the last Rhino (though he didn't dismount the squad; he should have to try to uproot the Scouts). He poured all the rest of his fire into my Ironclad, focusing it down. I rolled reasonably well on the FNPs, saving an extra three or four wounds. While that didn't keep it alive through his shooting phase, it did keep it alive longer than he wanted, so he kept having to divert fire from the other Dreadnoughts and the Razorbacks to ensure that the Ironclad indeed died. He attempted a charge with his Dreadnought onto a Razorback but failed. My turn two, I pushed the Dreadnought block and the captain further up the middle, setting up a charge for two of them into the LRR and/or its contents. Focused fire from the Razorbacks and the remaining Tactical Squad wiped out the five enemy Tacticals, and the Venerables put paid to his Dreadnought as well. I was ready to charge and kill his Captain with the Dreadnoughts when we forced to halt and pack up. Given the chance to play through the Assault Phase, I think I would have won. So. BATREP out of the way, here are the lessons I learned from this game: 1. Focus fire is important. Spreading damage around on models without degrading stat lines is a waste of effort. When it comes to heavy targets like vehicles and monster, focus your fire and kill one as quickly as you can. Then, designate another target and rinse & repeat. As has been the case since I first started playing, start with your anti-tank guns to peel open transports so your anti-personnel weapons can murderize the contents. 2. Capitalize on the FNP save's existence. Venerable Dreadnoughts get two FNPs save -- one from their own rules, one from the Chapter Tactics. They can even be given a third such save, a 5+, from one of the stratagems. While the saves themselves use poor values -- 5's and 6's -- the fact that any weapon can hurt any model means that overall, Dreadnoughts will be taking more hits than they used to. More hits means more damage, and more damage means rolling a high number of saves. If your dice are hot, it'll keep key units alive and fighting (like it did for my plasma-carriers on the the overcharge rolls) while in a high volume of fire case, such as my Ironclad, it can keep the unit alive for longer than it ordinarily would. The longer it's alive, the more firepower it's soaking up, which means less hitting the rest of your units. Consider the Ironclad as a Distraction Carnifex, if you will. 3. Dreadnoughts love the Machine Empathy stratagem. Ignore the moving-Heavy-weapon to-hit penalty was huge for both the assault cannon and plasma cannon Venerable Dreadnoughts, allowing me to hit on 2+ while rerolling 1's (thanks, Captain!) while advancing on the enemy. It was especially nice with the plasma cannon, since it kept me from overheating on 2's when murderizing the enemy Terminators in my backfield. 4. Respect the Thunderfire Cannon. S5 AP-1 doesn't sound like an exceeding powerful stat line, but that's when you forget to combine it with 4d3 shots. Three TFC shots across two turns resulted in 7 shots, 8 shots, and 10 shots, and that many dice rolling into any unit, even something as hard as Terminators, will push wounds through their armor saves. Its long range and indirect fire capability also make it easy to hide and still be effective. 5. Respect the plasma. I've always relied heavily on plasma weapons; it was the only way to survive in the Marine-heavy metas I used to play in. Now I know I played against a Marine army so this might be confirmation bias in effect, but my mass of plasma weapons were super effective. Overcharge mode against Terminators is just as silly-effective as it looks on paper, wounding on 2+, reducing them to a 5+ save, and each failed save killing a whole model. They're just as effective as anti-tank guns, since Rhinos and Dreadnoughts are T7, swinging your attacks to 3+ to wound instead of 4+ and again, punching multiple wounds in for every hit. Just beware of the twin plasma gun turret on the Razorback. You can't risk overcharging those because rather than losing a wound, they'll straight up kill the Razorback on an overheat. So that's me after one game. Let's hear about everyone else's early experiences!

It's been pretty quiet around here lately, and I'm assuming that's because my fellow Iron Captains are out purging xenos and heretics! So what has everyone been running? What tactics, combos, units, and/or army builds have been working for you? I've only played three games, but so far I'm a fan of my Venerable Dreadnoughts. The double-FNP gives them extra durability that always confounds my opponent (my one Tau opponent literally dropped f-bombs when I was saving wounds), and a pair of Thunderfire Cannons have probably sterling service in clearing away chaff units and objective holders like Fire Warriors and Tactical Marines. I've encountered lots of deep strikers though, so deploying so as to prevent a back-field drop seem very important to me, which is another reason why I like both my Hunter and the TFCs: they have 60" range and the TFCs don't need LOS, so I can stick them near enough to the table edge to close down landing zones without gimping their ability to reach across the table.