Caution: Exploding vehicles

[Mandragola]

So one of the slightly more subtle changes in 9th is that you can't do as much with command rerolls. One of the things you now can't do is reroll when a vehicle explodes.

 

This is potentially quite a big change for marines. Our armies tend to feature a lot of units huddled around HQs to take advantage of auras. Vehicle explosion has always been a threat, and it has seriously changed the outcomes of some games I've played, but in the past we've had the protection of those rerolls. Taking this protection away is now quite a serious threat to that strategy, I think.

 

This is a particular issue for some of the Primaris vehicles. Repulsors, Redemptors and even Impulsors do D6 mortal wounds to anything within 6" if they blow. That's enough to sometimes kill characters outright, while doing major damage to everything else nearby. Invictors blow up like this too, but hopefully they do it nice and far away.

 

Similarly, we can't reroll if a model is killed when getting out of a transport. We can still pick who dies, but this is still quite a problem. In theory you could put stuff like Centurions in transports, but the chance of losing one or two of them to an unlucky roll makes that much less appealing - not that it looked particularly strong to begin with.

 

Fortunately the new Primaris Captain's relic shield offers pretty good protection against this sort of thing. If you do want to run a blob of tanks then there's a decent case for taking one of these guys as your Warlord, I think.

[SydonianDragoon404]

This is an incentive not to have your guys, especially your chain of command hanging out around vehicles all the time. GW is doing this so you don't have your chapter master, tech marine, and lieutenant all hanging out with a big group of dreadnoughts or tanks. 

 

Word the wise- Black Templars have a 5+ ignore mortal wounds rule. 

[Panzer]

It's still worth having characters hang around vehicles though. Partly because of their auras but more importantly because they get easy Look Out Sir! when being within 3" of a vehicle. Explosions happen rarely enough anyway.

[Brother Kraskor]

It's still worth having characters hang around vehicles though. Partly because of their auras but more importantly because they get easy Look Out Sir! when being within 3" of a vehicle. Explosions happen rarely enough anyway.

 

Can always retreat to a safe distance when the vehicle has one or two wounds left. From 'Look out, sir' to 'This way, sir'!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

This is an incentive not to have your guys, especially your chain of command hanging out around vehicles all the time. GW is doing this so you don't have your chapter master, tech marine, and lieutenant all hanging out with a big group of dreadnoughts or tanks. 

 

Word the wise- Black Templars have a 5+ ignore mortal wounds rule. 

I love the weird ways that 5++ comes in useful, like supercharging the Laser Destroyer on the Deimos Vindicator.

[Dracos]

Infantry baby, no explosions there ... oh wait ... plasma ... BOOM

[Brother Kraskor]

 

This is an incentive not to have your guys, especially your chain of command hanging out around vehicles all the time. GW is doing this so you don't have your chapter master, tech marine, and lieutenant all hanging out with a big group of dreadnoughts or tanks. 

 

Word the wise- Black Templars have a 5+ ignore mortal wounds rule. 

I love the weird ways that 5++ comes in useful, like supercharging the Laser Destroyer on the Deimos Vindicator.

 

 

There's always a way to blame psykers!

[Mandragola]

I might be overestimating how significant this is. I once had a repulsor explode, killing another repulsor - which exploded. Most of my army was gone at the end of that.

 

Firepower at the moment is strong enough to kill multiple vehicles per turn. You don't get to move away from a damaged vehicle - the perfectly ok vehicle next to you just goes bang.

 

I think to start with I'll look at all-infantry lists. I'll avoid anything that explodes for D6 mortals, or at least keep it out of my HQ bubble. The Leviathan might get to stay because it only explodes for D3 and provides nice Look Out Sir protection. The Warlord trait to enlarge auras looks quite appealing.

 

Time to draw up some lists. My hot take is that this is a good moment for Gravis armour. Eradicators and Inceptors both look awesome, at 40 points each. Aggressors have had quite a nasty points increase but they're pretty nasty if they hang out near Pedro. I can see myself fielding Inceptors and Aggressors in 5-man squads to protect characters without suffering from rules about coherency and blasts.

[Hymnblade]

Conversely, "throw an Invictor in their face and hope it blows up" becomes a bit less of a viable play. It was never reliable, but I had a game recently where I rerolled it into an explosion and effectively did 30 mortal wounds for 1CP.

[TheNewman]

Didn't Aggressors only go up three points? I'd hardly call that a nasty increase.

 

...it just occurred to me that Vengance of the Machine Spirit (or whatever that strat is called) no longer has any legal targets at all.

Edited July 16, 2020 by TheNewman

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Explosions can decide a game but that said it doesn’t justify not using Primaris dreads and vehicles.

[Mandragola]

Didn't Aggressors only go up three points? I'd hardly call that a nasty increase.

 

...it just occurred to me that Vengance of the Machine Spirit (or whatever that strat is called) no longer has any legal targets at all.

I think they went up 8. Fragstorm grenade launchers are 5 points - though the initial leak had them at 0. Flamer aggressors are 40 so they only went up 5.

 

That isn’t a huge increase but it’s probably a bit above average. The stats on points increases are currently mostly wrong because they don’t include the fact weapons you used to pay for are often free. Going up >20% feels like quite a lot but maybe still leaves them useful. Anyway, aggressors don’t explode.

 

I’m not saying that any exploding vehicle should now be avoided. But they’re a bigger risk now than before, and that’s something to take into account. It might be that you want to spread out your vehicles and bring different GW’s, rather than a bubble around a chapter master and LT.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Mandragola