7th Edition: Hammer Unbound

[WarriorFish]

Guardsmen and women of His most glorious hammer, take a moment to raise your eyes from your ETL vows for this message from High Command. As we are all aware the rumoured 6.5 Edition may be becoming more like a full 7th Edition but for simplicities sake we'll call it 7th. If you're unaware, check out the Rumours topic on it here which also deals with some of the official announcements from GW.

Rather than talk about the rumours (use the topic above!) I thought we should start casting our eyes forwards to what it will mean for us in the Guard. First things first: unbound armies is the biggest change and what a change it is! Armoured Companies - start your engines..! It also opens the doors to all sorts of themed armies so this is very exciting. It is of course open to some abuse but to be honest it's probably more of a levelling of the playing field as it's not like there aren't plenty of tricks already.

That's not to say FOC armies are dead, they appear to get bonuses that make it more effective as a battle group - re-rolling Warlord traits is useful as is the "super scoring" status. Good for Infantry Companies I'm sure but it remains to be seen exactly how this works, or if this is it.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable on psykers so I can't offer too much on the changes here, but with the new psychic phase and warp charges etc I could know as much as anyone else! This could really mix things up, we may not have great psykers (insert PBS complaint here) but we can field a fair few of them so this could be beneficial for us. It could be a lot of fun for traitor lists and offer a lot of flavour with the ability to summon Daemons. No word on the Sanctic power tree yet but I think it's safe to assume it's likely about banishment and protection from the Daemon tree. A little boring perhaps but there could be more to it.

There are other rumours about (eg combat consolidation, tougher vehicles) that will effect us if true, but we can address them once they have been proven to be true. Until then keep to the rumours section to avoid cluttering this topic up - hopefully we can have this be a nice resource for us as we move into the early days of 7th Edition

So comrades, what do you think? At this early stage I'm having difficulty seeing anything beyond an Armoured Company As our codex is so flexible I think unbound perhaps offers us less than others, but it still opens up a lot of potential. Well, it would if I could stop thinking about tanks at least

[Kierdale]

It certainly opens up some fun opportunities (though the stubborn old git part of me will likely want to agree on Battle Forged Armies in most games), the kind of thing that I might want to try for one-off games.

I suppose it would allow me to field an entire rough-rider army! :D

 

If you're not happy about the new PBS rules (can't get myself to use their new name) then how about fielding each member as a full-on Primaris? ;)

[Commissar Uri]

I gotta say a full armoured company sounds awesome sauce and the gaurd and tau come to think of it might benefit from this the most but I'm worried about what this will bring about. In other words have GW created a monster?

[Fibonacci]

Even folloing the FOC has some great advantages.  First and formost is that your troops can capture objectives that can only be contested by troops from another FOC list.  Second is that any dedicated transoprt coutns as the same type as the unit it was bought for.  Unless there is some other rule that has yet to surface to change things it looks like 6 scoring chimera's per platoon.

[WarriorFish]

No more of a monster than existed before, there have always been broken units/combos in the game that people have exploited. Unbound merely makes it more open and transparent and makes counters more readily available. If you struggle to deal with someone's tricks then I'm sure not having to worry about the FOC will help you greatly! It comes down to your opponent as always, and there's nothing GW can do about that as the game is what you make of it (they even say as much).

 

I'm still annoyed about the PBS, but maybe the new psyker rules will aid them? In the unlikely event that they don't then Primaris Pskyers ahoy... can you fit 7 in a list? No wait, Unbound psyker horde anyone? :P I hadn't thought of a RR army, that would be absolutely amazing - and it was only discussed recently too, though I can't remember where exactly. Would that GW did new models and their rules were a little better...

 

I also agree that I will stick to the FOC, it's never been a problem for me and I like the additional challenge for tweaking an army so it's just right. As much as I love building lists though I'm sure I won't be able to resist rolling the tanks out from time to time. I don't even know how many I have come to think of it, this could be the perfect excuse to count :lol:

[spafe]

an all rough rider company? thats what springs to mind anyway...

 

after that...somthing invloving a lot of earthshakers...a lot of earth shakers in deed...

[hendrik]

why would you ever field an unbound armoured company when you can take an actuall bound army made from the armoured battalion list from IA volume 1,2nd edition?

one major gamechanger will be nightfighting. will it still be quasi automatic on the first turn in every single mission, or will it only be included in some scenarios? will the player going first decide wether it is night or day (since he's the one taking the initiative to commence the attack). i guess that untill we have more rumours the possibilities on how it will all affect us are endless!

[David Ravel]

I was already building an army of Tanith with the new dex putting tons of veterans with sniper and 3 count-as sniper team for Ratling. I guess I will just play 80 ratlings count-as now !

[Warhead01]

Right now I see no reason to use an unbound army.  As an easy way to set up a list the formation option is interesting, depending on if GW releases more formations, which would be a clever use for their WD weekly. 

[WarriorFish]

an all rough rider company? thats what springs to mind anyway...

 

after that...somthing invloving a lot of earthshakers...a lot of earth shakers in deed...

Indeed, though you can do a good Artillery Company in the current codex you soon run out of HS slots...

 

why would you ever field an unbound armoured company when you can take an actuall bound army made from the armoured battalion list from IA volume 1,2nd edition?

one major gamechanger will be nightfighting. will it still be quasi automatic on the first turn in every single mission, or will it only be included in some scenarios? will the player going first decide wether it is night or day (since he's the one taking the initiative to commence the attack). i guess that untill we have more rumours the possibilities on how it will all affect us are endless!

Don't forget that not all are able to play with FW stuff for a variety of reasons, so this gives them their tank army :)

 

It feels like somewhat of a turning point, especially since 6th wasn't that much different to 5th. I wonder if challenges will remain? I assume so but I'm hoping they're tweaked so they're less of a hassle.

[spafe]

I was thinking jsut the earth shakers... 75 points a pop arnt they as a fixed gun.

 

I'll have 16 or so for 1200 points, then some other stuff for flavour in a 1850 game...

[Frater Cornelius]

My army would not change. Every element right now has a certain job that they do best. Why switch to something sub-optimal? Besides, even if the boni given above for following FOC are the only ones, it would still be worth it. I like my platoon blob and glory boy veterans. No armoured assault is complete without infantry support and vice versa. To sum up, nothing would change except maybe some in-game tactics of mine that the use of psychers or at the very most I'd take more heavy support that allowed in a regular FOC, but that is not always necessary ;)

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

I've been avoiding the rumours thread because all the negativity, GW-hating, and fighting gets me down and makes me discouraged about the hobby. Thanks for starting this threat, WarriorFish.

 

There will always be abuse -- I doubt GW could make a perfect, abuse-proof system -- but the unbound does open things up for lots of cool, thematic lists.

 

Yeah, Rough Rider army is what came to my mind as well -- finally could do that if I wanted to. Even better if done with the DKoK Assault Brigade list since, not only are their riders a lot better for not a lot more points, they have Death Rider command squads so you could still have orders and commissars going. On the downside, DKoK Deathriders can't take special weapons so you might not want to go FULL Death Riders since you'd have no weapons above Str 6 and even those would require being in close combat, but you could make a very thematic army.

 

You could also to an Astra Miitarum Storm Trooper list -- this way you get access to chimeras and AM orders/warlord traits which could have some definite advantages over the Militarum Tempestus list I think. Not sure this would counteract the ability to contest objectives but I guess if you can wipe out the enemy you can still score.

 

Like others here, I expect I will stick almost exclusively to "Battle Forged" lists. I love my basic troopers as much as I love my toys and in most situations it is more thematic anyway. Only on very special missions would I envision tanks and such totally unsupported by infantry.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

RE: Psykers

 

Personally not a fan of them for fluff reasons -- DKoK after all have very insular views about them. BUT, I wonder if the rumours about a new pschic phase that may involve Fantasy-style "Casting" and "Dispel" dice will lead to a major bonus for PBS if each psyker contributes to the dice pool? In which case there would be a very real reason for bringing larger PBS. I wonder if they might cumulatively generate more warp charge under the new rules? I noticed that the daemon summoning psychic power costs 3 Warp Charge.

[librisrouge]

I'm thinking that the new psychic phase is the reason for the Sanctioned Psyker unit being what it is. Perhaps Brotherhood of Psykers will change to allow them multiple levels or they'll be a way for IG to spam psykers and gain a lot of casting dice so that we can overwhelm the enemies defenses and get a bunch of powers through. Maybe traitor guard can spam summoning spells and drop unit after unit of bloodletters on the enemy.

[Thunderhawk3015]

Personally this is one aspect i'm going to like because it means i can run an armored company or mix my marines in with guard in casual and themed/campagin games.

[WarriorFish]

RE: Psykers

 

Personally not a fan of them for fluff reasons -- DKoK after all have very insular views about them. BUT, I wonder if the rumours about a new pschic phase that may involve Fantasy-style "Casting" and "Dispel" dice will lead to a major bonus for PBS if each psyker contributes to the dice pool? In which case there would be a very real reason for bringing larger PBS. I wonder if they might cumulatively generate more warp charge under the new rules? I noticed that the daemon summoning psychic power costs 3 Warp Charge.

 

I'm thinking that the new psychic phase is the reason for the Sanctioned Psyker unit being what it is. Perhaps Brotherhood of Psykers will change to allow them multiple levels or they'll be a way for IG to spam psykers and gain a lot of casting dice so that we can overwhelm the enemies defenses and get a bunch of powers through. Maybe traitor guard can spam summoning spells and drop unit after unit of bloodletters on the enemy.

I'm hoping something changes, as it stands the PBS is a single psyker with additional wounds which isn't great.

[captain sox]

for every "uber list" aka unbound army, there in an equally uber counter for it. Variety, diversity and the FOC. will be interesting to see what comes out, and how it benefits the Astra Militarum.

[march10k]

If they let my troops score from inside chimeras like they did in 5th, that's all she wrote. Eight scoring chimeras sprouting autocannons from the hatch FTMFW. Failing that, Creed with rerolls on warlord traits? Four chances to get D3 outflanking demolishers? Or four chances to get 4 orders per turn? And maybe with an 18" radius?

 

I'm also thinking that this increases the value of my other project, the MT air assault formation...the stormtroopers in their valks would not only be scoring, they'd be uber-scoring, and with the mobility afforded by their valks, they'd be BOSS at flipping unbound-controlled objectives!

 

My question is, if both sides are unbound, can they contest each other's objectives? The only thing I really get is that unbound can't contest a battle-forged's objective...so can an unbound nonscoring (say, a ratling sniper) contest an unbound veteran squad? Can an unbound veteran squad contest another unbound veteran squad?

[WarriorFish]

We don't know all the details yet, so we'll have to wait and see. It does sound like battle forged lists may have enough going for them for it to be well worth using which is good.

[WarriorFish]

Here's another interesting thing or two from the WD pages - shooting is done in weapon phases. So for example you could resolve the lasgun shots first to plink away the front line to let your heavier weapons take out the protected models behind. Perhaps more useful for us is the changes to the vehicle damage chart - they're only taken out outright on a roll of 7. So AP1 and 2 can still take a vehicle out in one, but not AP3+ weaponry (outside of open topped, presumably).

The exact wording to describe this was:

Our reasoning behind the change was that a single krak missile or axe blow cannot kill a Tyranid Carnifex of Eldar Wraithlord, so why should it destroy a Predator tank?

Yes GW, well done you. How many years did it take you to figure this out?

-2" to charge distances in difficult terrain isn't a massive change I don't think, mostly makes them slightly more predictable. Though we're not charging that often it's still important to consider, even if it just means being aware that the maximum charge through cover is now 10". Sounds like a sensible change to me, along with most everything else I'm reading so I'm looking forward to 7th Edition.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

I read somewhere that if one uses the daemon summoning psychic powers, ANY double = perils of the warp. Herein lies a big reason to bring brotherhood of psyker units like PBS, since you can much more easily absorb perils wounds -- assuming you want to bring daemons of course. I have to say, there are Black Templar levels of wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the Grey Knight forum over the daemon summoning thing to the point that I guess I'm just going to stick with the IG forum. You guys seem to be the only ones able to grasp that no one is forcing you to use new options and to me there are just so many cool narratives available. Personally I don't even care about GK summoning a daemon -- in my own mind I will just decide they are not actually GK or they are fallen GK (given the numbers of fallen Sisters of Battle that have entered the fluff, surely in a universe as big as 40K some GK have come under the influence of a radical inquisitor or otherwise fallen).

 

All I see are lots more narrative opportunities for Lord Inquisitor Soulis and his faithful inductees from the Astra Militarum to burn the heretic, the witch, and the mutant.

 

Sorry for the rant -- back on topic. The change to vehicle damage chart sounds like it makes sense to me. Although vehicles do have things that monsterous creatures don't, like large fuel tanks and ammo that could encourage them to blow sky-high in one blow from a power axe or a krak missile. But I'll take the change. Good for our tanks, and I think it's especially good that our transports have less fear of being blown-up killing troops inside. They're more likely to just get safely wrecked or immobilized. I think this gives a slight boost to mechanized lists but nothing over powered.

[WarriorFish]

I fear that may be the only reason for a PBS squad, but there's still the chance something else will crop up :) Picking all of your powers from the same power tree you get the primaris power for free, an advantage for us when using several ML1 psykers!

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Maybe they will include some new power(s) in the new BRB that will function like the old codex ones where you get more power the more psykers are in the squad. PBS are not the only brotherhood of psykers out there so I could see this as a possibility.

[Andhil]

I read somewhere that if one uses the daemon summoning psychic powers, ANY double = perils of the warp. Herein lies a big reason to bring brotherhood of psyker units like PBS, since you can much more easily absorb perils wounds -- assuming you want to bring daemons of course. I have to say, there are Black Templar levels of wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the Grey Knight forum over the daemon summoning thing to the point that I guess I'm just going to stick with the IG forum.

Apologies, but what exactly do you mean with this?

On topic: I'm actually looking forward to this. Most of the new options sound incredibly awesome. I'm even considering creating an Ogryn/Bullgryn regiment, just for fun.