Ice, Ice Baby! Valhallan Leaks!

[gunnyogrady]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/09/28/regiment-focus-valhallans-sep28gw-homepage-post-2/

 

Let the discussion commence!

 

Brief Summary:

 

Valhallan Doctrine is that Infantry halve the number of models that flee due to a failed morale test, rounding up. In addition, Vehicles double their wounds for the purposes of determining damage profile.

 

Valhallan Order is that the ordered unit can shoot an enemy unit that is within 1" of a different friendly unit. On rolls of 1 to hit, you have to resolve the attack against a friendly unit of your choice that is within 1" of the enemy unit. This cannot be issued to squads that are within 1" of an enemy unit.

 

Valhallan Stratagem is that you can restore a Valhallan Infantry unit that was completely destroyed for 2 CP. This happens at the end of the movement phase, they set up 6" from the edge of the table edge in your deployment zone, 9" from any enemy units. Characters and "squads that have used the combined squads stratagem" can't do it.

 

New Stratagem allows Astra Militarum Vehicles to charge even after they advance, hitting on 2+ in close combat, for 1 CP.

 

Conscripts are capped at 30, only take orders on a 4+, and cannot receive another order if the first one fails.

 

Baneblade-chassis vehicles can move and fire at no penalty to their Heavy Weapons.

 

Teased but not revealed in the wording of "Send in the Next Wave!" is some kind of stratagem that allows you to combine squads.

Edited September 28, 2017 by gunnyogrady

[Feral_80]

I like them. They are both defensive and offensive. The infantry bonus is ok, but only really good for units that will be outside Commissars range (expensive Vets, CCS, etc. sent to kamikaze against an incoming enemy). The tank bonus is very good for a defensive play, but probably not so good as the Catachan one overall. Of course, it's good for LR Punishers and other non-random shot tanks since the Catachan one does nothing on these.

 

What makes Valhallan powerful, however, are their order and stratagem.

 

The order is VERY fluffy and I love it - I can't wait to fire on my own troops for the Motherland!

 

If the 'Send in the next wave' stratagem does not require to buy those troops in advance (and I understand it doesn't), it can be a life-saver, and again very fluffy.

 

 

On a more general scale, both the Super-heavy change and and stratagem are awesome.

[Kruso]

Yeah, if we don't have to pay reinforcement points that stratagem is going to be brilliant. Really looking forward to try all of these doctrines, but this and Catachan are my favourites so far. My models are Vostroyan though, but that shouldn't matter.

[Zectz]

The stratagem works exactly the same as the Chaos Cultist one as far as I can tell. Except for Guard it's open to any infantry squad which is very flexible. Did your opponent focus all his shooting to get rid of your anti tank heavy weapon squads? Bring them back. Did your opponent charge your objective secured troop unit that was sitting on an objective in your deployment zone get wiped out in combat? Bring them back and contest the objective with objective secured. Lots of options here.

 

The doctrine might not seem that strong at first but it makes infantry and vehicles very reliable and consistent overall. Especially super heavies/leman Russ with the number of wounds doubled basically means you have to destroy them before their shooting gets less accurate.

[micahwc]

I love the Vahallan order. What are people using for Vahallan infantry?

[Thoridon]

It's an interesting one!

 

I'm not sure which direction to take my Valhallans. I currently just have 2 squads, each with a special weapon, plus an officer. I can't merge them into Conscripts as they are as I only have 16 with lasguns, so I'd need to buy more to run Conscripts (and would then have the sergeants/specials sitting unused). On the one hand I'm tempted to do that, get a couple of blobs of 20-30 and if anything happens to commissars there's the 1/2 morale losses to compensate. I could then maybe have a couple of special weapons lurking behind in a command squad with the officer ready to fire into that combat if still ongoing in my next shooting phase.

 

I'd maybe need to try to source a few more specials, but consider this: only hit rolls of 1 hit friendly models with this order. Flamers auto-hit. The way that's written you could have Flamer special weapon teams sitting behind with 0 chance of hurting your own men, despite throwing flames all over them. Or am I missing something?

 

On the other hand I could keep them as normal Infantry, but that doesn't seem to make the best use of the order.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Thoridon

[OnboardG1]

The stratagem works exactly the same as the Chaos Cultist one as far as I can tell. Except for Guard it's open to any infantry squad which is very flexible. Did your opponent focus all his shooting to get rid of your anti tank heavy weapon squads? Bring them back. Did your opponent charge your objective secured troop unit that was sitting on an objective in your deployment zone get wiped out in combat? Bring them back and contest the objective with objective secured. Lots of options here.

 

The doctrine might not seem that strong at first but it makes infantry and vehicles very reliable and consistent overall. Especially super heavies/leman Russ with the number of wounds doubled basically means you have to destroy them before their shooting gets less accurate.

 

Doesn't the chaos cultist one act on a living unit while this works on a dead one? Either way it's a pretty nice way of suiciding a veteran squad of something earlier in the game and then magicking them back into action later on. It's cool.

 

EDIT: I absolutely LOVE crush them. I'm really going to have to put together a tank army towards the end of the year.

Edited September 28, 2017 by OnboardG1

[gunnyogrady]

Russes got buffed back up to usable. Each Regimental Doctrine really gave us some bumpin' rules for tanks. "Crush Them" makes tanks very fast and nasty in combat, especially the Super Heavies.

 

I think that, along with the Conscript nerf, will restore a tanks/infantry balance to the Guard.

Edited September 28, 2017 by gunnyogrady

[Truesight]

A Valhallan Baneblade vehicle needs to take 20 wounds before it degrades.  And with Crush Them! are actually really scary in melee while firing into and out of it.  8 heavy bolter/flamer baneblades running around are going to be monsters.

 

Summary of other leaks from warhammer twitch stream:

 

>Leman Russ can get ObSec (something to do with tank commanders)

>Steel Legion Infantry double their rapid fire at 18" instead of half range

>Steel Legion Vehicles treat AP -1 as AP 0

>Genestealers will get FAQ for how to ally with new IG, will get Leman Russ buffs but not normal IG Doctrines

>Militarum Tempestus get an extra shot with their guns for each 6+ to hit when the target is within half range

>Cadians Doctrine is "Born Soldiers"

>Re-roll hits of 1 in shooting phase if they didn't move in the previous movement phase. If an Infantry unit with this Doctrine is issued Take Aim! and did not move in the previous movement phase, re-roll all failed hits.

>Combined Squads Strat can be used midgame, not pre-game - end of movement phase, combines two Infantry Squads within 2" of each other.

>There's a Stratagem called an Officio Prefectus Command Tank that gives the Commissar rules to a Tank Commander

>Preliminary Bombardment Stratagem 2CP - roll a dice for EVERY ENEMY UNIT on the battlefield, each 6 causes 1 mortal wound, one per battle.

>Vostroyan Stratagem is "Firstborn Pride" start of the shooting phase, select a Vostroyan unit, +1 to hit rolls that phase - can even use on Baneblades

>Superheavy tanks no longer -1 to move and shoot heavy

>Grenadier Stratagem, when a unit shoots or fires overwatch up to 10 models in that unit can throw a grenade

>Some super-heavy weapons tweaked to be better

>Earthshaker Cannon on basilisk is now AP -3

[Zectz]

 

 

The stratagem works exactly the same as the Chaos Cultist one as far as I can tell. Except for Guard it's open to any infantry squad which is very flexible. Did your opponent focus all his shooting to get rid of your anti tank heavy weapon squads? Bring them back. Did your opponent charge your objective secured troop unit that was sitting on an objective in your deployment zone get wiped out in combat? Bring them back and contest the objective with objective secured. Lots of options here.

 

The doctrine might not seem that strong at first but it makes infantry and vehicles very reliable and consistent overall. Especially super heavies/leman Russ with the number of wounds doubled basically means you have to destroy them before their shooting gets less accurate.

Doesn't the chaos cultist one act on a living unit while this works on a dead one? Either way it's a pretty nice way of suiciding a veteran squad of something earlier in the game and then magicking them back into action later on. It's cool.

 

EDIT: I absolutely LOVE crush them. I'm really going to have to put together a tank army towards the end of the year.

Yes that's correct. I meant in terms of using reinforcement points or not which somebody was asking earlier. Yeah suicide veterans is another cool way to use this strategem. Especially when you bring back all the special/heavy weapons the squad had.

[micahwc]

I'm probably going to buy a couple boxes of Bolt Action Soviet Winter Infantry. Each box comes with 40 models. Each comes with enough Mosin Nagants to arm all the models. I have no doubt in my mind that Mosin Nagant rifles will survive until the 40th millennium, and could easily see the Vahallans issuing them. Use the sniper variants for "ratlings".  Back them up with real GW stuff. The models seem a little less "heroic scale", but I think they will work fine.

[Captain_Krash]

GW needs to do something to address the lack of models to represent these awesome regiments once again...or else all these rules are literally for nothing. You can only proxy so much...

 

Krash

[Thoridon]

Well, the regiment rules are there for anyone to use for a homemade regiment. Can easily use Cadian models with Valhallan rules if it's clear in advance that they're your own regiment and not actual Cadians.

 

Not that I'll do that - I'm old fashioned and Valhallans are Valhallans - but they'll point out that the rules are there for anyone to choose their preference.

[Captain_Krash]

True and you are right. I have Steel legion and Praetorians for my metal models, but would kill for Tallarns to be released again...it's a shame that they have all these rules for the old regiments and you can't get needed models for them. So you have to just say "yeah uhhhh these Cadians or Catachans here yeah uhhh there using Valhallen regiment rules" Deal with it.

 

 

Krash.

[Altasmurf]

Honestly GW could just put out head swaps for most of the regiments. Maybe some kind of accessory pouch and sword stylized for a regiment and package a kit kit similar to the genestealer cult kit. Tallarn, mordian, and valhallan could just pop a head on to a cadian body and be represented with a paint job a kit fitting the style.

[Guardsman Bob]

In their Send-In-The-Next-Wave Strategem it implies Combined Squads are coming back in some form. Exciting and frustrating with the information flow. Edited September 28, 2017 by Guardsman Bob

[Mitchverr]

So the crush them stratagem, work well for cyclops/hades drill you think?

[gunnyogrady]

From the twitch leak, it seems that you can combine two infantry squads as a 1CP stratagem. This has to happen in-game though, not before game. Take that with some salt.

[Captain_Krash]

If it does affect those models Mitch it will be glorious!

 

Krash

[Mitchverr]

Actually reading the cyclops, i believe you "detonate" in the shooting, so it wouldnt really work for that too well unless you make the enemy fear mortal wounds.

 

For hades, it should effect, its a vehicle, its guard, so 100% a thing, deep strike in 9 inch away, advance 1-6 inches to the target, charge, whirling blades of doom.

[HenricusTyranicus]

Actually reading the cyclops, i believe you "detonate" in the shooting, so it wouldnt really work for that too well unless you make the enemy fear mortal wounds.

 

For hades, it should effect, its a vehicle, its guard, so 100% a thing, deep strike in 9 inch away, advance 1-6 inches to the target, charge, whirling blades of doom.

Can't quite work...you advance in the movement phase, not the shooting phase. So you can't advance on turns you deepstrike in.

[Withershadow]

The cultist stratagem is more flexible since you can spawn them anywhere. Spawning them in your deployment zone is if more limited usefulness.

[Beams]

True, but if your respawning Lascannons or to hold backfield objectives it's still awesome.

[narcolepticltd]

GW needs to do something to address the lack of models to represent these awesome regiments once again...or else all these rules are literally for nothing. You can only proxy so much...

 

Krash

 

 

True and you are right. I have Steel legion and Praetorians for my metal models, but would kill for Tallarns to be released again...it's a shame that they have all these rules for the old regiments and you can't get needed models for them. So you have to just say "yeah uhhhh these Cadians or Catachans here yeah uhhh there using Valhallen regiment rules" Deal with it.

 

 

Krash.

 

If they're not already designing new sculpts or don't already have them almost out the door ready to release - they're really just encouraging their customers to buy from 3rd party shops IMO.

 

Honestly GW could just put out head swaps for most of the regiments. Maybe some kind of accessory pouch and sword stylized for a regiment and package a kit kit similar to the genestealer cult kit. Tallarn, mordian, and valhallan could just pop a head on to a cadian body and be represented with a paint job a kit fitting the style.

 

Honestly, with the way most of these are sculpted currently - it wouldn't take much more work to do full resculpts, and the cost of tooling for sprues of new full sculpts would be about the same as a simple upgrade sprue - but they'd make a lot more return on full sculpts.

[Kuro_Ryu]

I'm probably going to buy a couple boxes of Bolt Action Soviet Winter Infantry. Each box comes with 40 models. Each comes with enough Mosin Nagants to arm all the models. I have no doubt in my mind that Mosin Nagant rifles will survive until the 40th millennium, and could easily see the Vahallans issuing them. Use the sniper variants for "ratlings". Back them up with real GW stuff. The models seem a little less "heroic scale", but I think they will work fine.

I've already been doing this. It works well although obviously I'm not taking them to a GW store or event any time... ever. I did also get some 3rd party Lasguns for them as I didn't personally feel comfortable leaving them with mosins. You can easily use bolt action heavy weapon teams as is though and their flamers guys conveniently come with a friend so you can buy 3 and have a special weapon squad.

 

This is all assuming GW doesn't release some kind of new range for the non cadian regiments. At this point I'd wait and see if they do if I were you.