8th edition has me excited about the GK!

[Captain Coolpants]

New morale leaves a bad taste in my mouth though... As if we'd run away.

 

We'd literally charge into nurgles rotting anus without batting an eye!

[Myunch]

New morale leaves a bad taste in my mouth though... As if we'd run away.

 

We'd literally charge into nurgles rotting anus without batting an eye!

I have to agree here, initially I was like... what?! But then it occurred to me, this could be justified as a fighter being killed in combat while momentarily seeing a battle brother taken down or something of that nature. I view it more as a bonus kill for overwhelming the opponent rather than them running away and being killed, because, let's be honest, you're totally right, there's no way GK would tuck tail and run (and this goes for many, if not all factions).

[Happy-inquisitor]

New morale leaves a bad taste in my mouth though... As if we'd run away.

 

We'd literally charge into nurgles rotting anus without batting an eye!

 

They go out of their way to explain that turning and running is only one of the narrative explanations for the removing of models. Personally I will narrate morale failures of my GK as incapacitating psychic shock from the death of too many brothers within the strong mental bonds of the brotherhood of psykers.

 

I tend to run 5-man squads so it will not exactly happen very often.

[Prot]

I think again the information is so incomplete it's hard to be too critical at this point. I could easily see a Grey Knight 'keyword ' leading to fearless against daemons!

[Phiasco]

My earlier doom and gloom post was probably a bit premature. I'm very excited for this addition and cannot wait for it to get here. I'll be very tempted to give all my knights deamon hammers.

[Waking Dreamer]

My earlier doom and gloom post was probably a bit premature. I'm very excited for this addition and cannot wait for it to get here. I'll be very tempted to give all my knights deamon hammers.

 

Someone did ask GW whether a person who had a thunderhammer would still attack second, and they replied saying that there was a downside to wielding those powerful and "ponderous" weapons. 

[Reclusiarch Darius]

The new Morale rules seem to be a return to the 5th edition hell of Fearless and 'No Retreat' for horde armies. I was initially excited for them after seeing the 'chargers go first in melee' rule. But now they're going to be gutted by insane multiple Overwatch, random charge range is still a thing (despite it being one of the most hated and nonsensical aspects of 40k), and now if your tattered survivors still don't make it happen on their charge, you get punked by voluntary Fall Back of the enemy. Which just allows their friends to rip you apart with regular shooting in their turn. 

 

Our squads however aren't typically more than 5 strong, 10 at best. So unless you're getting absolutely hammered (in which case they're dead anyway), the D6+models lost (note that its no longer wounds inflicted) means you're only likely to fail on say Ld9 or 10 if you spike hard on the D6 roll or you're already losing hard. Also, considering this Morale system is more or less a direct port from Age of Sigmar, its likely that Marine armies will get a special rule that lets them mitigate this problem (Stormcast have it in that system). 

 

I'd say the changes are definitely favoring small elite armies, again. MSU not only works for a melee focused force, for shooting armies being able to bait charges then fall back to expose the enemy to your gunline at will is broken as hell. Supporting Fire is broken, but at least its Tau only and still an Overwatch (and they have to waste markerlights boosting it to maximise the effect). Now everyone can just position pawns and nullify melee units. 

[Gentlemanloser]

Apart from the 3" pile in move sucking non charged units into CC.  Conga lines (and overwatch!) be damned!

 

Try a gun line Tau, I dare you!

[Waking Dreamer]

That new Brigade Detachment (giving you 9 command points) seems out of reach for most GK players if they keep our army style as an elite, low model-count army. Also, do you think they will keep Driago as LOW, or maybe have him as a HQ choice?

[Myunch]

I feel like they will keep him as a Lord of War, along with the greatest of all the other chapters and factions greatest fighters and war machines. I mean if Draigo isn't the GK LoW what/who could be?

[Ishagu]

You have to lose 3 Termies before you can even fail a morale test.

I'm not too concerned.

[Valerian]

That new Brigade Detachment (giving you 9 command points) seems out of reach for most GK players if they keep our army style as an elite, low model-count army. Also, do you think they will keep Driago as LOW, or maybe have him as a HQ choice?

 

Yes, the Battalion Detachment looks like it'll be about as good as we'll be able to get to, but I'm not sure many armies could fill the Brigade in 'regular' sized games.  Of course, there are 9 other Detachments we haven't seen yet.

 

Very exciting stuff!

[Ishagu]

I wouldn't start focusing on anything yet.

These are 3 of the 14 that will be available, and GK will probably have a unique one dedicated to them.

 

There will probably be ones that match us far better.

[Zamtro]

Honestly I'm excited to see what the edition is bringing for our weapons! I'm kind of hoping salvo will get scrapped and my two 5 man Purgation squads with Razorbacks and TL assault cannons will be a bit more usable! Tougher vehicles, plus better shooting on the move! Very keen to see what happens with assault from vehicles and Deep Strike, plus maybe an army wide Teleport rule like the days of old

[Myunch]

Honestly I'm excited to see what the edition is bringing for our weapons! I'm kind of hoping salvo will get scrapped and my two 5 man Purgation squads with Razorbacks and TL assault cannons will be a bit more usable! Tougher vehicles, plus better shooting on the move! Very keen to see what happens with assault from vehicles and Deep Strike, plus maybe an army wide Teleport rule like the days of old

I have been thinking about Purgation squads a lot for 8th as well! Hopefully with their mention of the -1BS to Heavy Weapons that have moved in the shooting phase instead of Snap Shots is an implication that they're scrapping Salvo (I loathe this special rule). With a simple -1 to BS when moving, this could easily bring some value to the Purg squads.

As a note however, they should, in my humble opinion, be decked in TDA, dropping their force weapon to be dual wielding the heavy weapons... ah what a dream that would be...

As for Deep Strike, that would not only be amazing in game, but also fluffy. I would be all to happy to see a rule like that for us in 8th. =D

[Myunch]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/09/new-warhammer-40000-characters-may9gw-homepage-post-4/

 

So the first thing that came to mind here was Voldus, being the best Psyker in our ranks, I'm going to speculate that he will somehow affect our psychic phase for the better! =D

 

I'm really digging this change!

[newdigitalGK]

I'm kind of digging. Some armies are going to be better at bubblewrapping then others. DS can create IC sniping and sniper rifles may factor in depeding on how they work.

[TheMostGood]

Oh snap, as confirmed by the Warhammer 40K Facebook page, challenges are no longer in the game. This means your boy Crowe and the Brotherhood Champion are going to have their special rules rewritten for sure. 

[Valerian]

Oh snap, as confirmed by the Warhammer 40K Facebook page, challenges are no longer in the game. This means your boy Crowe and the Brotherhood Champion are going to have their special rules rewritten for sure. 

 

Brotherhood Champions

 

To me, the new Brotherhood Champions concept was one of the coolest things that Mat Ward introduced to the Grey Knights in his 5^th edition codex.  I just love the idea of a martial specialist who trains all of the recruits in the Brotherhood, and then acts as a bodyguard for the Brother-Captain in battle.  I’m really hoping they make this selection viable, so I have a reason to model and field one, finally. 

 

They need to do a couple things with him, though.  First, they need to fix the mobility mismatch that he currently has with the Brother-Captain, so he can actually accompany him to do the bodyguarding that is emphasized in the fluff.  The Brother-Captain is in Terminator armor, and is likely to deep strike onto the battlefield, but the Champion, in his Articifer armor can’t.  Obviously, just giving him the deep strike ability would fix that simply enough.

 

Second, they really ought to add in something that actually conveys the bodyguard role – something like an automatic “Look out, sir!” if within a certain radius would suffice. 

 

Now that my suspicion that they’d no longer allow Independent Characters to join units has been confirmed, they could give the Champion some pretty cool rules, like switching places with the Captain if he gets assaulted and is within 6”.  Something like that would really bring out the narrative of the background material on the battlefield. 

 

They’ll probably keep some form of the ‘Perfect Warrior’ battle stances and maybe even ‘Heroic Sacrifice’ since those would all still make pretty good “bespoke” special rules for this unit, and emphasize his martial prowess as the Brotherhood’s Champion.  Again, since I expect challenges will be abandoned, they’d just reword these to be in effect for any combat.

 

Imagine this – you charge your Champion into a unit of cultists, and he moves into a ferocious Sword Strike stance (gaining rerolls to hit and to wound, and maybe an extra attack or two) and starts mowing them down.  However, when your Champion is charged by a unit of bloodletters, he deftly initiates the Blade Shield stance (rerolling failed saves), and none of their attacks get through his expert parrying and deflection.

[Gentlemanloser]

No Challenges you say?

 

YYEEEESSSSSSS say I!

[Zamtro]

Honestly I'm excited to see what the edition is bringing for our weapons! I'm kind of hoping salvo will get scrapped and my two 5 man Purgation squads with Razorbacks and TL assault cannons will be a bit more usable! Tougher vehicles, plus better shooting on the move! Very keen to see what happens with assault from vehicles and Deep Strike, plus maybe an army wide Teleport rule like the days of old

I have been thinking about Purgation squads a lot for 8th as well! Hopefully with their mention of the -1BS to Heavy Weapons that have moved in the shooting phase instead of Snap Shots is an implication that they're scrapping Salvo (I loathe this special rule). With a simple -1 to BS when moving, this could easily bring some value to the Purg squads.

As a note however, they should, in my humble opinion, be decked in TDA, dropping their force weapon to be dual wielding the heavy weapons... ah what a dream that would be...

As for Deep Strike, that would not only be amazing in game, but also fluffy. I would be all to happy to see a rule like that for us in 8th. =D

haha TDA dual wielding... a Man can dream :P

[Valerian]

Grand Masters and Brother-Captains

 

I’ll be curious to see if they split out the unit entry on these two, as it was in 5^th edition, or if they keep them together and continue to treat Grand Masters as an upgrade.  I’d prefer they actually split them out again and make both viable choices, and figure out a way to differentiate the two.  They really need to give Brother-Captains something new and interesting that makes them a viable “commander” choice against a Grand Master.  Nobody has played stock Brother-Captains in over six years, as it has always been a better choice to just spend the extra points and take the Grand Master.

 

Regardless of how they treat the two, one thing I’m pretty confident of is that they’ll really emphasize the Leadership influence these would have on your army.  We’ve seen how the new Morale phase is going to work, with its potentially brutal Battleshock test, so these are the character choices that the designers will put forward in our army list to help us mitigate that test and the damage that might be done in that phase.  The great thing about that approach is that it is exactly what these two heroes should do for us in the background/fluff.  They’re the ones that will motivate and influence the rest of the Grey Knights in a way that will preserve our combat power.  I can definitely see them getting special rules like picking a unit to ignore Battleshock for the turn, or giving a +1 to Leadership for all units within 12”, etc.,which will be great for them.  Because, in addition to just getting a nice beat-stick character to charge into the enemy, you’ll get someone that can have an impact on your whole army in the Morale phase.  I expect it’ll be very reminiscent of the old Rites of Battle rule that Space Marine Captains used to have a couple editions ago.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Challenge sniping has always been one of the most annoying and retarded aspects of melee. I'm kinda glad its gone. You also had dumb stuff like Sergeants intercepting a challenge, so their beatstick HQ could still fight and all they lose is a squad leader (at worst). 

 

Brotherhood Champions should get access to a personal teleporter. Would allow them to keep up with Interceptors and Dreadknights, and also allow Deepstriking alongside our Terminators. I prefer them staying in AA with an Iron Halo, it gives them a distinct profile and role. 

 

Brother Captains and Grand Masters I'd expect will get some kind of Leadership aura. Now that they can't join units, it would make sense. I'd like the old 'Psychic Communion' back, and 'Grand Strategy' would be nice (I have always hated Warlord traits and would prefer to see them gone alongside formations and random psychic powers). 

 

 

Purgation squads are gonna be the big winners of the 8th edition changes. Most of the rules changes seem to be trying to make infantry powerful again, and the ability to freely split fire is going to revolutionize how heavy weapon squads work across all factions. Purgators are still a mid-range unit (unless they've increased psycannon range), but provided the profile is roughly the same, they'll be able to spit out a tonne of firepower and engage multiple threats. I have a whole bunch of PA psycannon dudes I haven't fielded in ages, outside of using one in SWA recently (where he is MVP). 

[Valerian]

Brotherhood Champions should get access to a personal teleporter. Would allow them to keep up with Interceptors and Dreadknights, and also allow Deepstriking alongside our Terminators. I prefer them staying in AA with an Iron Halo, it gives them a distinct profile and role.

 

Yeah, as you might recall, I've been clamoring for a Personal Teleporter option for Brotherhood Champions since they were first released in 5e. They absolutely would be optimal with that as an upgrade option. At a minimum, though, they need to be able to Deep Strike, so they can at least deploy alongside and move with the TDA squads (and that Brother-Captain they're supposed to protect!).

 

Brother Captains and Grand Masters I'd expect will get some kind of Leadership aura. Now that they can't join units, it would make sense. I'd like the old 'Psychic Communion' back, and 'Grand Strategy' would be nice (I have always hated Warlord traits and would prefer to see them gone alongside formations and random psychic powers).

 

I expect we'll keep something like Warlord Traits, but doubt they'll be random, so they'd look a lot more like the old Grand Strategy anyway. Already mentioned the Leadership auras, so we're in agreement there.

 

Purgation squads are gonna be the big winners of the 8th edition changes. Most of the rules changes seem to be trying to make infantry powerful again, and the ability to freely split fire is going to revolutionize how heavy weapon squads work across all factions. Purgators are still a mid-range unit (unless they've increased psycannon range), but provided the profile is roughly the same, they'll be able to spit out a tonne of firepower and engage multiple threats. I have a whole bunch of PA psycannon dudes I haven't fielded in ages, outside of using one in SWA recently (where he is MVP).

I really want the Purgation squads (and Strikes, and Interceptors) to all improve, but I think a big factor there is what they end up doing with the Psycannon profile. If they remain Salvo weapons, our Power Armored infantry are still kind of shafted - two shots at 12" while moving is horrible, as you are well aware.. If they go back to Assault 4, that would be optimal. Rapid Fire 2 would be an acceptable compromise, though, I suppose. Will also be curious to see exactly how Force will work (although I have a guess). We may see a much higher prevalence of Psilencers in our light infantry units to help deal with the preponderance of high-Wound models that are going to be common in 8e games.

 

Very, very much looking forward to finding out, though - can't wait.

[Captain Coolpants]

Very excited about purgation squads! I have so many last generation psycannons that I miss using.

 

Was so lame trying to use them as standing still guys, waiting for the enemy to come to them...

 

Force I imagine will just cause mortal wounds or D3 wounds.

Or force weapons maybe an always active ability, and on a 6 to wound is D3 mortal wounds? I'd be happy with any of the above I think.