Wh40k 10th Edition Phases in 10th + Librarian & Weirdboy Datasheets + Battleshock

[tzeentch9]

3 hours ago, BluejayJunior said:

I'm seeing 20 total. Focused Witchfire Smite would get you 18 (if you rolled 6 shots, all hit, and all wounded on 6, then rolled 3 MW for al the damage) plus 2 more from the combiweapon. What am I missing?

6s to hit explode, so potentially 12 hits. I didn’t even count the combi weapon

[Special Officer Doofy]

So far the only thing I don't care for in 10th is characters joining units (again). Feels like a step back, but it does solve some issues and some people prefer it so why not. Psychic spells changing would be my number 2 issue. Without seeing how they handle TS and GK though I don't want to jump to conclusions. I hope Mortarion can cast -1 to hit on himself still or they just built the rule in his datasheet. How do they represent his hate for psychers and 3 denys though? Through a points drop? He already has 5+++, can't really give him a 4+++ for [psyhic] weapons on top of it.

 

My issue with this article is the same with all of them. It gave me more questions than answers, I have no frame of reference and just want 10th already haha.

[Tokugawa]

Since there would be no more casting value and deny step, I wonder what the dedicated anti-psychic units will do? Make nearby psychic attacks triggering hazardous "overheat" on 1,2,3 instead of 1?

[BrainFireBob]

1 hour ago, Toxichobbit said:

 

To me, yes, it does matter. I'm not married to the idea of a psychic phase and I see it's shortcomings, but making psychic powers just another attack (if this preview really is all there is to them) is taking it too far. I don't think what they're doing is the answer and I disagree with the GW design team in their philosophy*. I've been down this road before a couple of decades ago and the game was pretty widely regarded as worse because of this way of thinking, at least in my experience of playing a huge range of opponents during 3rd (I played hundreds of events and thousands of games in that edition, probably more than in 4th - 9th added together).

 

I also feel like they'll "solve" 10 problems with their changes, but create 20 more when the Codexes and supplements start coming out. I have zero reason to suspect that 10th won't be the cluster that 9th, 8th, 7th etc all were. I feel like the rules are always destined to end up an over-complicated mess, so the best I can hold out for is the rules at least feel like they represent the lore well. Right now, IMO they don't even manage that. So yeah, how the mechanics of the rules represent the uniqueness of different things in the game, whether that's psychic powers, sub-factions, weapon profiles or any of the other streamlining that they're doing, matters.

 

It's just one in a long list of changes they've announced for 10th that I think are bad, possibly the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. To give you some idea, I like the changes to vehicles and the new datasheets look nice. Anything else I say about this edition will be negative or occasionally neutral, so I'll just leave it at that. So all of that combined, between the changes that I hate, the options being lost, the mechanics becoming more bland and the belief that ultimately this edition will suffer the same fate as the other 9 and the changes will solve nothing - hopefully you can see why I'm feeling so down on it. It's just a net negative which feels like a sad state for something I love.

 

* Though to be honest, I always take anything the design team say with a huge grain of salt because I have very little faith in them.

It's interesting you feel this way. I played a ton in 3rd as well, and recall this complaint, but from my perspective nearly all psychic powers are just attacks anyway, and putting them in their own phase just made the opponent wait. Altering the game is about the only way I'd find them the way you find them- changing terrain, moving objectives, etc.- as it is, they've always been brain guns, unit buffs, or unit nerfs. For awhile, they were brain guns, unit buffs, or unit nerfs *in their own phase.*

 

My 2 cents, it's like differentiated power weapons. 2nd Ed rose tinted glasses resulted in over a decade of "it was better!" It came back, it's not better because effectively you only see the "best" choice in the wild, and now it's gone again. Privately, good riddance except for having to hear about the "glory days" of 8th and 9th for another decade. Looking forward to ASMs dying again in 10 years.

[Prim]

On the subject of the Morale test...

I'm reading it as you take the test at the start of the following turn. So if it is the last turn of the game and you reduce an enemy unit on an objective down to less than 50%... they still keep their full OC?

Looks like last turn objective grabs are going to be more common than ever.

[Interrogator Stobz]

It's ironic that in order to have a game that you can play tonnes of is to have it simpler like less phases, yet the majority of people still say give us more and more and more until it's unplayable. 

 

I personally love the simpler approach; RT was cool but was practically KT in size, I hated the complexity of 2nd, loved streamlined 3rd (it's where games could be HUGE without having a stroke, 4th onwards got worse unless you love the 2k equivalent sized games. 8th and 9th broke the immersion, but subjectivity on that aside bloated into what we can all agree is a mess.

 

I love that in Kill Team Psychic effects are like this article, they merge seamlessly and make sense.

So as long as factions get their flavour of warp magic things will be awesome.

[bigtrouble]

I love the changes, I always forget the psychic and morale phases as a filthy casual. The combi-weapon profile kind of looks like what I’d imagine a master-crafted bolter would become, maybe there’s more. I doubt this is the full data sheet.

[The Unseen]

12 minutes ago, Prim said:

On the subject of the Morale test...

I'm reading it as you take the test at the start of the following turn. So if it is the last turn of the game and you reduce an enemy unit on an objective down to less than 50%... they still keep their full OC?

Looks like last turn objective grabs are going to be more common than ever.

Umm... The last turn of the game they'd have to roll at the start of their turn, just before they score objectives. Assuming the timing of objective scoring remains the same, which we have no idea.

Last turn objective grabbing was basically not doable in 9th until they let the person who went 2nd score the Primary at the end of the turn, since it was basically impossible to score anything turn 5, since the opponent could just contest/clear every objective on the board since their scoring was already over with before the player going 2nd got to react. So the person going second basically didn't get a turn 5 except for secondary scoring. But they fixed that.

 

Also, all it would take for it to matter is to say "Roll Battleshock at the end of the game, just before scoring end of game objectives if your mission has any" in the core rules somewhere.

[Emperor Ming]

That smite can potentially be 18 mortal wounds, what.........

 

Factor in its a shooting attack now, it benefits from marine rerolls to hit and wound

 

and at first glance, I was thinking, oh that looks more balanced than just d3 mortal wounds

Edited April 18, 2023 by Emperor Ming

[Special Officer Doofy]

1 minute ago, Emperor Ming said:

That smite can potentially be 18 mortal wounds, what.........

 

Factor in its a shooting attack now, it benefits from marine rerolls to hit and wound

 

and at first I was thinking, oh that looks more balanced than just d3 mortal wounds

 

It's not mortal wounds though. It has a BS value, a strength value and AP. That means it has to be rolled to hit, rolled to wound and then they get an armor save. So a lot of the wounds are not going through. No more wizards in 40k, just people dressed weird with mind gatling guns.

[jaxom]

5 minutes ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

No more wizards in 40k, just people dressed weird with mind gatling guns.

As it should for the disciplined psykers of the Emperor’s Finest. Now let’s see what the actual filthy heretic sorcerers and Xenia witches can do.

[Large and Moving Torb]

3 hours ago, Urkh said:

<snip>

They didn't even show on either datasheet the list of units the leaders could lead (we know they're leaders though because they have abilities that lone operatives wouldn't have).

</snip>

 

This was one of the first things I noticed as missing when reading the article. I wonder if this means that will be listed on the back of the card or is some stuff being photoshopped out of the cards presented in the articles? I definitely would like to see those Leader lists.

 

Interesting that Smite got a range increase. I like the morale changes - it'll be interesting to see what leaders can do (if anything) to mitigate some of these effects. But morale now seems much more like... morale again. And much more tactically important than last edition. Moving morale checks to the Command phase also makes sense to me.

 

While I do like that the Psychic phase is gone, I'm not a fan of how psychic powers appear to be flattened. I don't have a problem with psychic powers being an attack, a buff, or a de-buff, but it doesn't look like there is a choice anymore. "I've used my Librarian's Smite power; do I use Veil of Time next or Fury of the Ancients? Nevermind, Veil of Time is always on and Fury of the Ancients is gone." FotA has been around since 4th ed. Gone is the tactical decision about how to use psychic resources. Granted, maybe there are addition psychic rules and powers, but these changes just swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. And Perils of the Warp is gone? Really? I'm now wondering how all the Chaos powers will work - will Daemon Princes only get Smite (if not Khorne-marked)?

 

Well, so far it seems like for every rule change they make that I like for the new edition, there is a change I don't like. Oh well.

 

 

 

[Magos Takatus]

1 hour ago, BrainFireBob said:

Looking forward to ASMs dying again in 10 years.

I'm not looking forward to that. They would be able to simplify the AP system down into 3 values. AP2 for dealing with Terminators, AP3 for Marines, and APU for Useless. 

 

Seriously though, I don't see how removing the psychic phase speeds anything up. Saying "Psychic Phase" and "End of Psychic Phase" doesn't take too long and it's the powers themselves (and their relative complexity) that determines the time saved. They could have streamlined the whole phase without ditching it entirely. It just seems to throw the baby out with the bathwater, then the bathtub itself, and then the floorboards the bathtub was resting on. I'm glad they are getting rid of the generic Smite ability but I'm a bit worried as someone that plays Aeldari that ripping out most of the buffs and stratagems that keep the Craftworlders alive will really damage the faction. The Guardian Defenders never did recover from the vandalism that 3rd edition did to them. On the other hand as an Admech player I'm not massively invested in the psychic phase with all of my armies, I just hope they don't rip out all the ways to express ourselves when making an army. If the only options we get are the colours we paint our models in the end I will mourn the loss of a great deal of creativity.

 

Don't take this as a 100% negative viewpoint though, there are quite a few things about the 10th ed rules like the new morale rules I think could be a real improvement but I will probably post something about that when I'm not desperate to go to sleep. 

[Kastor Krieg]

8 hours ago, Iron Father Ferrum said:

With battle shock now being tied to your squad's starting strength, we now see an incentive to take bigger squads.  MSU has been the rule of thumb for Marines off all flavor across 8th & 9th for several reasons, but one was to reduce your susceptibility to morale losses.  Now it'll be the reverse, because MSU needs to lose three models in most cases to get below half; a full squad needs to lose double that.  If they really do dip the lethality a bit, that will have to be a consideration.

20-man Crusader Squads, ahoy! :D


And re: "combi-weapons", I bet this is about the old storm bolter precursor, the Combi-Bolter - basically two regular bolters mashed together - in old times used on vehicles, but Chaos Marines ran around with them as well.

[Emperor Ming]

56 minutes ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

It's not mortal wounds though. It has a BS value, a strength value and AP. That means it has to be rolled to hit, rolled to wound and then they get an armor save. So a lot of the wounds are not going through. No more wizards in 40k, just people dressed weird with mind gatling guns.

Devastating wounds is the weapons damage as mortal wounds on a critical wound (6)

 

So its going to do way more than standard smite, so 6 times 3 is 18. Its unlikely, but its crazy that its possible. 

 

Even two six's too wound is 2d3 mortals. As I said, with marine rerolls to hit and wound that's going to amplify it

 

So, it is swingy with d6 shots, but even a 9th big smite is limited to d6 mortal wounds. 

 

Lethality in 10th will be reduced....

 

That's not what I'm seeing so far

[zero888]

2 hours ago, Tokugawa said:

Since there would be no more casting value and deny step, I wonder what the dedicated anti-psychic units will do? Make nearby psychic attacks triggering hazardous "overheat" on 1,2,3 instead of 1?

There could very well be something like a core strategem called Deny the Witch which interacts with a weapon with the "Psychic" keyword

[Interrogator Stobz]

41 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

Devastating wounds is the weapons damage as mortal wounds on a critical wound (6)

 

So its going to do way more than standard smite, so 6 times 3 is 18. Its unlikely, but its crazy that its possible. 

 

Even two six's too wound is 2d3 mortals. As I said, with marine rerolls to hit and wound that's going to amplify it

 

So, it is swingy with d6 shots, but even a 9th big smite is limited to d6 mortal wounds. 

 

Lethality in 10th will be reduced....

 

That's not what I'm seeing so far

This psychic weapon sure has damage potential, unlike the Combi.

It's a mixed bag so far. At least it's early days.

[WrathOfTheLion]

It's certainly an interestingly swingy possible amount of damage.

 

Might make Chaos Sorcerers worth taking again.

[Ahzek451]

To the concern of psykers losing utility by being locked into certain powers on the data sheet, I would hazard a geuss that maybe when codex books come, it will be like sigmar where there will be a table you can still take a power from. 

[Montford]

I am thinking about a direct conversion for those abilities which currently cause -1 Leadership into having them cause a -1 on an enemy Unit's battleshock roll. That might be an effective dynamic without being too powerefull.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Montford
Spelling

[Khornestar]

1 hour ago, Kastor Krieg said:

20-man Crusader Squads, ahoy! :D


And re: "combi-weapons", I bet this is about the old storm bolter precursor, the Combi-Bolter - basically two regular bolters mashed together - in old times used on vehicles, but Chaos Marines ran around with them as well.

Maybe, but that would be a bit of an odd choice for this model, wouldn’t it? It’s got the storm Bolter, this new model. The old one has a combo-melta… that seems to make a bit more sense, having this sheet account for both models.

 

Where would a classic combi-Bolter be coming from?

[Nephaston]

Well have to wait and see what [Psychic] means as an ability, as it could easily demand a leadership test to use or provide an avenue for denies.

 

Other than that the main difference between a psychic ranged attack and a gun will be that the psychic attack won't be modeled.

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

Custodes player here: good riddance to bad rubbish of the smite mortal wounds spam it was absolutely disjointed in how brutal it was against elite armies. 

 

Making it a shooting profile was absolutely the right way to go.

 

 

Regarding phase man I really did wish that there was an alternate activation set up. Or consolidate charge and fight and give a damage phase.

 

 

[Special Officer Doofy]

3 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

Devastating wounds is the weapons damage as mortal wounds on a critical wound (6)

 

So its going to do way more than standard smite, so 6 times 3 is 18. Its unlikely, but its crazy that its possible. 

 

Even two six's too wound is 2d3 mortals. As I said, with marine rerolls to hit and wound that's going to amplify it

 

So, it is swingy with d6 shots, but even a 9th big smite is limited to d6 mortal wounds. 

 

Lethality in 10th will be reduced....

 

That's not what I'm seeing so far

 

Mathing it out against a marine on average you are still doing close to 2W. Mind you that's slightly higher than it is now, but you're losing the option of utility and picking other better spells than smite. But let's not get crazy with "18 mortal wounds"...

 

To get 6 shots (0.1667) have all 6 hit on a 3+ (0.0878) have all 6 get wound rolls of a 6 (0.1667 x 0.1667 x 0.1667 x 0.1667 x 0.1667 x 0.1667) then have all 6 of those rolls be 3 for d3 damage (0.3333 x 0.3333 x 0.3333 x 0.3333 x 0.3333 x 0.3333), when you multiply them all together you have a 0.00000004% chance of pulling it off...

[spessmarine]

7 hours ago, Tokugawa said:

Since there would be no more casting value and deny step, I wonder what the dedicated anti-psychic units will do? Make nearby psychic attacks triggering hazardous "overheat" on 1,2,3 instead of 1?

Judging by Liber Imperium, there might be a sizable Sisters of Silence model release for HH. Which could then get rules for 40k 10th.
We already saw what they do in HH, but they'd certainly bring some interesting anti-psychic to 40k too. Imperium armies of course, everyone else tough luck.
The current SoS roster for 40k is unlikely to have anything crazy.