Wh40k 10th Edition Leaders Joining Squads

[Arkangilos]

9 hours ago, Lemondish said:

I personally cannot wait to see the indexes. So many interesting things coming. So many interesting ways they can go.

Yeah, I’m really excited to see what tenth has in store!

6 minutes ago, Lagrath said:

No unit hoping is so bizarre. 

How so?

[Mogger351]

5 minutes ago, Arkangilos said:

Yeah, I’m really excited to see what tenth has in store!

How so?

I don't like the visual of the commander just rapidly merging into different units every 5 minutes to high-five and help them shoot better. They've chosen to deploy with their units who are pledged to guard them.

[Kallas]

41 minutes ago, darkangels91 said:

Oh emperor no! If they bring back vehicle facings then they also have to bring back vehicle pivoting and drawing line of sight from each individual weapon on vehicle models. That’s just even more bloat and time consuming. 

To be fair, I wish they'd clarify how a vehicle is allowed to move - far too many people power slide their tanks around and gain 4-6" of movement, and it's tiresome to correct them.

[Arkangilos]

16 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I don't like the visual of the commander just rapidly merging into different units every 5 minutes to high-five and help them shoot better. They've chosen to deploy with their units who are pledged to guard them.

I… can agree and disagree. 
 

When it comes to honor guard and such one hundred percent. But Lt’s, chaplains, apothecaries, etc. I can totally see doing that. 
When I was my commander’s RTO, we moved from unit to unit all the time, but I was always there within an arms length. As my platoon leader’s RTO before then we did the same, and when I was a team lead (and before then a regular infantryman) the same thing happened. The only “IC” that wasn’t a hopper was my Platoon Sergeant, because he was usually with the Weapon’s Squad.

 

Medics hopped around everywhere within the platoon. 
 

So like I could see someone that has dedicated honor guard not hopping, but leaders without honor guard I can see hopping no problem.

(I use that to say it doesn’t seem strange for me seeing it, but I can agree to restrictions and such).

Edited April 12, 2023 by Arkangilos

[MARK0SIAN]

50 minutes ago, darkangels91 said:

Oh emperor no! If they bring back vehicle facings then they also have to bring back vehicle pivoting and drawing line of sight from each individual weapon on vehicle models. That’s just even more bloat and time consuming. 

It’s better than every single weapon being able to fire at a target because the tip of the tank’s aerial can draw line of sight to the tip of another tank’s exhaust. 
 

HH handles it quite well, each weapon on a vehicle is given a classification like ‘turret’ or ‘sponson’ and has predefined directions it can shoot in, so the sponson on the right can’t target units on the left of the tank for example, whereas turrets can fire in all directions. 

[Arkangilos]

Just now, MARK0SIAN said:

It’s better than every single weapon being able to fire at a target because the tip of the tank’s aerial can draw line of sight to the tip of another tank’s exhaust. 
 

HH handles it quite well, each weapon on a vehicle is given a classification like ‘turret’ or ‘sponson’ and has predefined directions it can shoot in, so the sponson on the right can’t target units on the left of the tank for example, whereas turrets can fire in all directions. 

I’ll be honest, I much preferred pre-8th vehicle rules, but I always appreciate post-8th vehicle rules. It is more abstract and so is more fluid, even if less immersive.

[MARK0SIAN]

1 minute ago, Arkangilos said:

I’ll be honest, I much preferred pre-8th vehicle rules, but I always appreciate post-8th vehicle rules. It is more abstract and so is more fluid, even if less immersive.

Yes, I’ll freely admit some of the pre 8th vehicle rules were a bit clunky but 8th took it too far in the other direction for me. I’m not even arguing for a return of facings, just weapons only being able to shoot at target they can realistically see. The sponsons shooting through their own tank to a target on the other side annoys me to an unreasonable degree 

[Orange Knight]

So, do we think that this will usher an era of running units at max strength?

 

I have a bunch of Aggressors and Bladeguards that are all in squads of 5. Should I source/dig up additional models to make sure I can run max number units?

[Marshal Loss]

I am really, really happy about this. If I wasn't already excited for 10th this alone would have convinced me to try it out. Absolutely loathed the 8th/9th ed character system bubble & hiding system

[MARK0SIAN]

3 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

So, do we think that this will usher an era of running units at max strength?

 

I have a bunch of Aggressors and Bladeguards that are all in squads of 5. Should I source/dig up additional models to make sure I can run max number units?

I think you’ll certainly see at least one or two max size squads. If you’ve got a melee leader it would make sense to embed them in a max size squad of something like Bladeguard or VanVets or assault termies to get the most out of their buffs. 
 

With ranged units I think it will depend more on the unit you’re attaching them to as max size squads tend to be expensive. They’ll also be a prime target for the enemy and ranged units often don’t have the kind of defensive abilities like storm shields that can be given to melee units. It might be a case of too many eggs in one basket.

[Kastor Krieg]

5 hours ago, Lord Nord said:

I wonder if the new Phobos LT will have Concealed Positions so having him join an Infiltrator, Incursor, or Eliminator squad won't prevent them from using that ability. Neither of the existing Phobos LTs has it, although both the Captain and Librarian do.

Even Captains sometimes struggle with their Recon and LandNav ;)

[Kastor Krieg]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

I don't like the visual of the commander just rapidly merging into different units every 5 minutes to high-five and help them shoot better. They've chosen to deploy with their units who are pledged to guard them.

It's exactly what Winters does throughout Brecourt Manor, which action became the literal squad-based infantry tactics manual for US Army.
 

 

[Rhavien]

51 minutes ago, MARK0SIAN said:

Yes, I’ll freely admit some of the pre 8th vehicle rules were a bit clunky but 8th took it too far in the other direction for me. I’m not even arguing for a return of facings, just weapons only being able to shoot at target they can realistically see. The sponsons shooting through their own tank to a target on the other side annoys me to an unreasonable degree 

I'm completely in the other camp. I was always annoyed the shuffle my tanks around pre 8th. I don't know the actual HH rules, but there were so many bad tank designs around that just weren't fun to play in my opinion it sucked out all the fun. The introduction of flyers made everything ad absurdum resulting in guys telling my, that my storm raven can't shoot it's guns at a target right in front of them, because the hull and turret mounted weapons hadn't the right firing arc to do so. No sir, I don't want that to return. 

 

On the actual topic: It sounds cool to me for that characters are joining squads again. Denying character hopping also makes sense to me to reduce abusing rules. Maybe as suggested with a strat costing a CP or two to shut down sliding in and out of units at no cost. Remember they said to make the game less lethal. I hope that means that a unit, which isn't out in the open free for everyone to see has some actual staying power. Also if your opponent is focusing on that unit you can maximize the impact of your defensive strats like armor of contempt which was already shown. 

Finally I think that a game of wh40k represents an intense, fast paced clash of two forces on the battlefield. At turn two you literally have your enemies at arms length in general. Units exchanging point blank shots at each other changing to knives and spades when ammo runs dry. I don't see time for characters to take command over a new unit. At least that's how I would argue in universe to justify the rules. Restructuring would come after the dust has settled. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Rhavien
Grammer

[Lemondish]

I'm not inclined towards allowing leaders to slide in and out of units without severe restrictions on timing or resource cost. It may be realistic but the ridiculous levels of micromanaging that could come from this would be a nightmare.

 

You'd end up with a castle around that Lt to ensure you had lethal hits on a shooting unit in the shooting phase, then move to a melee unit in the combat phase before moving on to a possible third at the start of the movement phase to fallback and shoot/charge with. At that point it's just auras with extra steps.

 

These guys can still exist without attaching as well, so absent any limits you'd end up with instances where a cheap leader breaks off to charge a separate enemy unit, lock it into combat, then rejoins to protect itself from reprisal.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Lemondish

[Orange Knight]

I just bought another box of Aggressors and Eradicators in anticipation of running max units with characters. Will also get some Bladeguard with the Lion lol

 

Hopefully GW will amend the transport capacities of the various tanks in 40k to more closely mirror the Horus Heresy, so we can fit characters in there with the units.

[Brother Nathan]

seems a lot of that will affect marines more thna most armys. nids the hqs only have one sort pf unit they can really join near like squad upgrade. chaos termy characters gain purpose though they need more termy characters or termys wont gain benefits from mop etc.  kinda weird that you will need near specific characters for each marine unit then... 

[Orange Knight]

I think having the same armour for the characters is probably done so that the units don't have different movement or toughness profiles, and so that abilities aren't unintentionally lost or gained by merging units.

 

For example, if a regular Captain joined some Terminators, they would lose access to deep-strike.

 

 

[Karhedron]

I think I quite like the change. Yes it is less flexible but I think that there are some benefits to that in terms of stopping castling. Now your forces can deploy where they are needed rather than trying to all hug the nearest character. It also means we can ditch the concept of CORE.

 

On the plus side it now means that you can make one charge roll for a character and their accompanying unit rather than having one or the other twiddling their thumbs if they botch their roll.s

[Captain Idaho]

I don't think it'll take much management. You just put the unit within coherency and it's done. I imagine it'll be a case you join and can't leave until the movement phase, as previous editions have done easily enough.

[Lemondish]

2 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

I imagine it'll be a case you join and can't leave until the movement phase, as previous editions have done easily enough.

Right now joining a unit is "done before deployment, at the same time as transports are allocated and units are placed in Reserve – the Leader becomes a permanent member of that unit for the whole battle."

 

Or do you mean to say if they did allow leaving and joining it would need to a hard limit of when you can do it? That's what I was saying - absent a hard limitation you'd need to consider how difficult it would be to manage.

[Karhedron]

Presumably adding a leader will increase the unit size which may need consideration for BLAST weapons. It will probably still be advantageous to cap the overall squad sizes at 5/10 depending on the unit.

[Captain Idaho]

I wouldn't worry any about the rules now.

 

Practically, GW have put those limits into the game before. I remember them even providing us designers notes in faqs for it where they introduced the rule so independent characters couldn't duck out of a charge from their unit in the Assault phase.

 

I'm usually first in line to call GW out on mistakes and poor service they provide us, but meh this seems like it'll be clean and in the right direction.

[Rhavien]

At least it means $$$ for GW. Now you need all those captain, lieutenant, librarian etc. variants to accompy your squads. 

Wonder if the guy who came up with the idea got a bonus after they realized this. 

[Orange Knight]

I think things were pretty well explained in this case. We don't know all the leader types and their unit limitations, but it's clear that these leaders are permanently joined with a unit, and once that unit is destroyed the leaders themselves will be open to attack.

 

It will make transports and terrain more important than before, but from what is outlined there will be no joining or leaving units for the duration of a battle.

 

GW will really need to make sure the vehicle and transport rules are up to snuff.

[Crimson Longinus]

In isolation this seems fine. I'm a tad worried how it interacts with Oath of Moment though. I'm not sure it is necessarily fun gaming experience for marines to be instantly OoMing each others characters into oblivion.