Big FAQ has dropped.

[Spagunk]

+1 to wound rolls in close combat for BA vehicles would be hilarious. In the same way that the most effective anti-air is actually heavy flamer type weapons.

"Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my WHOLE TANK!"

[Lemondish]

 

 

 

Trade that Landraider for a Repulsor

And put my Terminators in it ... oh yeah, put my centurions in it then ... oh that’s right, well put a crusader Squad in it then ... hang on, well then put my chapter Master in it ... oh yeah :(

Yeah I really hate those restrictions too. It's really annoying.

I’d say they’re the most arbitrary, nonsensical and ridiculous rules in the entire game :)

I disagree.

 

Flamethrowers not only hitting, but being effective, at killing supersonic fighter jets.

[The Unseen]

Alright, if the differences between how each astartes chapter uses vehicles is so insignificant that it doesn't deserve rules, would you kindly explain :cussing IMPERIAL GUARD REGIMENTS then. Cause not only do they have very similar, and in some cases just outright better versions of marine tactics, but they get them on their vehicles too, and the ones that wouldn't help vehicles get additional rules for said vehicles. Sincerely, piss off with that excuse. Its just bad rules writing is all it is. My favorite has to be the massive middle finger the Iron Hands continually receive from GW, in that their chapter is literally the most mechanically focused chapter out of any of the ones with rules, and not only does their FNP not apply to their tanks, the one vehicle that it did actually apply to, the humble dreadnought, got additionally nerfed by GW ruling you couldn't stack FNP saves, which means that venerable dreadnoughts in a chapter known for dreadnoughts literally has worse venerable dreadnoughts than any other chapter. Hilarious, and totally not just a massive oversight by people who can't write rules very well. Nope, its GW thinking that Iron Hands venerable dreadnoughts were too strong.

 

Never attribute to malice (or in this case, a master plan) on what can be blamed on stupidity. ~ a butchered quote from someone more eloquent than me.

 

Anyway, for stuff on topic, its good to see the Ynnari keyword silliness excised, and the rotate ion shields get smacked down a bit. I think the 100pt increase in the castellan is more or less about right for how much firepower it kicks out and how tough it ends up being. I still see them being taken in competitive settings, but 100 pts less of supporting units will be noticeable, and being unable to get down to a 3++ on a dominus knight is a good thing overall. 3++ are incredibly strong, as a guy who loves his stormshields, but putting one on a unit with T8 and 28 wounds is too much.

 

And my Blood Angels are crying out praises for the Emperor that GW realized, about 3 months later than everyone else, but still, that the change to FLY was dumb and needed a subtler touch than "NO"

[GrinNfool]

 

I agree, but now I'm curious what other soups will rear its ugly head. Thats what soup is at the core, mix and match the best. Mix and match what now? At this point it's more of an issue of what armies can and cannot abuse soup. Obviously the ones that have zero allies cannot ever. Necrons, tau, and orks. Is a nerf necessary? No. And seemingly not in GW's eyes. But at least consider giving bonuses to armies that choose not to ally.

Whatever comes up won't be as good as the previous Castellan soup losts. That's why people ran Castellans.

 

This isn't necessarily true though its certainly what everyone and GW is hoping.  However that doesn't mean its the case.  It could very well be that Castellan and Ynnari lists happened to be hard counters to another list that didn't get run, but with its natural counters becoming much weaker that list breaks through and it could be even more oppressive to non ynnari or castellan lists then the previous top dogs.  Balance is rarely 1 dimensional nerfing one thing often creates another problem sometimes even bigger.  I am in support of the nerfs they did don't get me wrong but the easiest way to picture it is a local eco system.  Ranchers arrive in an area, kill or run off all the coyotes, wolves etc because they were killing a couple of their herd a month.  Now all their former prey population booms, and over eat on the grazing land.  Now the ranchers will either have to go on a much harder varmint hunt, loose more of their herd to lack of food then they would have to the wolves or coyotes, or pay  money to bring in food increasing their overheard when they thought they had enough grazing pastures.  Simply put sometimes what you thought was bad was holding back an even worse problem, lets hope that isn't the case here.

[toaae]

...mob up limitations were unexpected.

 

Actually, we were discussing that as an incoming change more than a week ago. It wasn't the only thing we thought we might see (something for the relic SAG was rumored), but it was the only rumor we had that was specific.

 

This change I'm mostly fine with. We had been seeing less 25 man loota bombs and more single units taken in top lists, and I personally only built 15, because I didn't want to invest so heavily in a strategy that I thought the meta was adapting to. The downside is that other units lost out on mob up that weren't abusive, like Kommandos.

[Ishagu]

Geoff in Control Robinson just hinted at future Astartes Chapter tactics being shared across all units, but that vehicles won't necessarily have the same bonuses as the infantry and Dreads.

[Lord Raven 19]

As a Custodes player this brings me joy:

Liked for the LotR quote

[Bat33.1]

On a side note, when anyone else reads the designers commentary do you think to yourselves “What planet do these guys live on that the consequences of that change took you by surprise?” The fly nerf needing to be rolled back was obvious to anyone reading it for the first time when it was introduced, how are these veteran games designers constantly caught out by this kind of thing?

Mostly because they are playing 40k in a fluffy bubble at Warhammer world in the studio or small closed gaming groups that have little to no interest in the competitive gaming scene. Hence the reason when GW staff turn up at Adepticon or LVO they are continually surprised by builds that have been around the UK scene for 6 months or more and knee jerk the crap out of some strong build they see playing on one of the WHTV tables without understanding how they interact with the full rules of their own game.

 

How many times do we see rules errors in WD battle reports or streamed live that GW miss?

 

That said they are trying harder to address issues in the game so we have reasons to be thankful that we are no longer waiting years for even basic FAQ rules questions to be cleared up.

[ShinyRhino]

I'm sorry, but if people are really that concerned with a few S4 0AP shots from Crusader Hurricane Bolters, then you probably have bigger problems with your list...!

 

Also if you get within 12" (which as a transport, you'd hope) they still get the same shots!

I was going to say the same thing. On an LRC/Stormraven it's 12 shots a turn. The SR should be unaffected, since you're moving that thing around anyways. An LRC isn't a long range dakkaboat, it's a transport. Drive that thing forward and fire.

 

The only other things really affected were the Rhinos with double storm bolters.

[Ishagu]

The Repulsor lost out most as that thing typically has 3 Storm Bolters in top of the other guns with 24" range

[Panzer]

Yeah I'm almost sad that my T8 transport with FLY has to get close to the enemy for 6 more bolter shots now. 

I love my Repulsor as much as the next Primaris player but I really don't think he lost all that much. :D

[Excessus]

Just read the last few pages and here's a small reminder to keep things on topic, guys. It's about the contents of the FAQ... :)

[General Strike]

Anyone notice that they God locked the renegade traits for chaos?

[Lord Raven 19]

'Give me an assassin' stratagem change was unexpected, does GW usually change WD rules?

[MegaVolt87]

Anyone notice that they God locked the renegade traits for chaos?

 

Yeah this I saw. Was expecting they would do it was hoping they would not. 

[toaae]

'Give me an assassin' stratagem change was unexpected, does GW usually change WD rules?

 

It's been so long since we had meaningful rules in WD that it's not a relevant precedent. But I don't think there's any reason to think that WD rules can't be changed.

[wildweasel]

 

'Give me an assassin' stratagem change was unexpected, does GW usually change WD rules?

 

It's been so long since we had meaningful rules in WD that it's not a relevant precedent. But I don't think there's any reason to think that WD rules can't be changed.

 

 

WD is no longer its own entirely separate subteam, but part of the Studio and the rules being published into since the start of this year are done by the same teams as do products for the individual gamelines. They are rules for the games with the same weight as rules published in a codex or campiagn book, and thus subject to review and revision in the same fashion.

[Plaguecaster]

 

 

Anyone notice that they God locked the renegade traits for chaos?

Yeah this I saw. Was expecting they would do it was hoping they would not.

I’m the opposite I was hoping they would as it was pretty stupid people able to use the Purge or Flawless host renegade rules and then mix another mark when they always god specific

You should never of been able to use any other mark in a Purge force apart from a Nurgle likewise with flawless host being Slaanesh. Some people may of liked it not being that way so they could get an advantage stacking additional rules or traits but just wasn’t fluffy as stupid as when people tried giving psykers the world eaters keyword when CSM codex first dropped this edition

[MegaVolt87]

 

 

Anyone notice that they God locked the renegade traits for chaos?

Yeah this I saw. Was expecting they would do it was hoping they would not.

I’m the opposite I was hoping they would as it was pretty stupid people able to use the Purge or Flawless host renegade rules and then mix another mark when they always god specific

You should never of been able to use any other mark in a Purge force apart from a Nurgle likewise with flawless host being Slaanesh. Some people may of liked it not being that way so they could get an advantage stacking additional rules or traits but just wasn’t fluffy as stupid as when people tried giving psykers the world eaters keyword when CSM codex first dropped this edition

 

 

I know what you mean. Though look at how desperate CSM players are for something competitive that they know breaks the lore just to have something viable to use. Old CSM and GK have clearly still hurt players over the space time loop that they constantly get bad rules as a result. 

[Arkhanist]

 

Old CSM and GK have clearly still hurt players over the space time loop that they constantly get bad rules as a result. 

 

Nah, it's just the playtester for GK is Nigel. Nigel is That Guy. Nobody likes Nigel. 

[Sweetcurse]

Who’s Nigel?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

That guy who always complains about most everything and has absolutely nothing good to say ever.

[kombatwombat]

So on reflection, the most significant thing to come out of the FAQ for me wasn’t a rule change, but part of the explanation of why they took Bolter Discipline away from vehicles:

 

Whilst it has helped bolster the rank-and-file, boltgun-wielding Space Marine (or Chaos Space Marine), it has made certain vehicles – notably those with hurricane bolters – much better than anticipated.

To my knowledge, the only three non-Dreadnought vehicles that pack hurricane bolters are the Land Raider Crusader, Stormraven and Dark Talon. Two of these are flyers and hence can’t be tied up in combat, with minimum moves of 20” and generally need to be up close (ie within rapid fire range), and so aren’t really impacted all that much by Bolter Discipline.

 

Which leads me to believe that GW has said they consider a Land Raider Crusader with Bolter Discipline too powerful and needing a nerf.

 

That’s frightening. For a long time things like GW’s actions - notably things like classifying Soup as being multiple factions in one Detachment and ‘fixing it’ - have made me wonder whether GW’s rules team are too oblivious/incompetent to understand their own game and community, or cunning/malicious enough to play dumb and look like they’re trying to help us out.

 

Calling the LR Crusader too powerful is a pretty powerful indicator that it’s the former case - GW’s rules team just doesn’t understand their own game. If anything, that’s more frightening than the alternative of their marketing team being cunning enough to walk the fine line of looking like they’re helping the community, while actually swindling players out of more money. At least that would be predictable, and something we could plan for. Instead, we have an oblivious all-powerful entity randomly hurling lightning bolts down from the clouds with no understanding of the impact of their actions.

 

I am deeply troubled by this.

[Guest MistaGav]

A minor point but Storm Raven and Dark Talon can both hover so they could be affected by charges and never have a minimum move but yes, taking it away sucks as the DT is overcosted and BD made all of these actually worth taking. Not so much anymore.

 

Might take some redemptors instead, please GW release a mortis pattern redemptor!

[MARK0SIAN]

@KombatWombat

 

The other thing that’s puzzling is how 12 extra bolter shots at 12-24 inches away can make something like a Land Raider much better than expected. Better yes, but it’s hardly incredible! Also it’s not unexpected, you’d know exactly how many extra shots the rule would give it and what kind of effect that could have.