Wh40k 10th Edition 10th Edition CSM changes. The players thread!

[Prot]

I want to touch base with the CSM player base. 

 

I'm going to put aside my own thoughts on the new rules... up to now it's mostly been about Pacts of the Dark Gods:

 

 

I typically don't make a firm decision on a rule until I have played it numerous times.  And this is a really unique one compared to anything we've seen before with a positive/negative outcome. I really am curious to play it out.

 

I do feel like I will be concentrating my lists on a plethora of Legionaries with chainswords to make best use of this. (Most likely my Black Legion as my Iron Warriors are quite a bit more range bound.)

 

How do you think this will work in your Legion/Chapter?

 

I do think that Leadership, overall this edition is a far more important stat. I'm very curious to see if Night Lords retain what was thought of as fairly useless leadership trickery in 9th. It could even come into play vs. other CSM with the new "Dark Pacts" rules.

 

Some Datacards:

 

We are noting above that our suspicions about the treatment of the Chaos Terminator boxset did indeed trickle into the 10th edition melee stats. We see that all manner of Fists/Heavy Axes/Chainfists, etc might be lumped into the category of "Heavy Melee Weapon". (Not confirmed yet, though we see space marine thunderhammers are now AP -2, 2 Damage but Devastating Wounds)

 

What are you thoughts?

[Cryptix]

Well Chainfists we know from space marines terminators are separate, since they kept the -1 to hit that powerfists lost but gained anti-vehicle 3+, which could be powerful if we have a way to give our termies devastating wounds.

[Prot]

17 minutes ago, Cryptix said:

Well Chainfists we know from space marines terminators are separate, since they kept the -1 to hit that powerfists lost but gained anti-vehicle 3+, which could be powerful if we have a way to give our termies devastating wounds.

 

Ah right, I forgot about the Chainfist. I think the Thunder hammer also retained the -1 to hit, but is basically a fist with Devastating wounds.  So I only have 2 models I believe that can take a fist with my CSM so not a big issue. But the Chainfist being changed, I think that could work in our favour, especially since I use Abaddon quite a bit.

 

 

[TrawlingCleaner]

I think Lethal Hits and Sustained hits are very good abilites and I think for some units, it's definitely worth the potential MW. On a unit of Havocs with Chaincannons or a unit of marines with chainswords, they can punch up into vehicles (I love the IW Tank Hunters strat that does this) and into hordes Sustained hits really rocks with volume of fire. Interestingly, Sustained hits is (essentially) statistically a +1 to hit, although the Dice Gods do love a good upwards or downwards Spike in rolls

I can definitely see a strat or a chracter ability that allows a unit to autopass their Dark Pact check so we have a way of keeping a unit at full steam when we need them.

 

As we're at least 6 months away from seeing what our Subfaction detachments look like (as we won't have any in the index), I think it's probably a bit too early to guess, at least until the SM and 'Nid books are out.

 

I'm a big fan of most of the changes we've seen so far and I'm excited to see where we end up when the Indexes are released. Burning the Galaxy either way is my bet

[Prot]

I have to see the larger picture. For now I'll definitely be re-incorporating my Chain cannon Havocs!

 

I think one thing I do like for sure is the change to Havoc Autocannon:

 

So I'm thinking Abaddon, with Termies, firing off a bunch of storm bolters is one way to grab some Devastating Wounds at range. Havocs with Autocannons could be a thing as well having 3 damage at Strength 9 (still not sure what our Lascannons look like?)

 

Good ol' cultists with flashlights, Accursed Cultists, and the thing is a mob of Legionairies with Chainswords, especially on Objectives will be great fishing for mortal wounds.

 

EDIT: I had the wounds wrong. Devastating Wounds = MW on a 6 to wound. Lethal Hits = auto wound on a 6 to hit. 

 

One additional note that I completely missed on: Mixed units might be the best for us. Mixed meaning roles... as in Terminators will be my favourite unit again. 

 

So Terminators for example: Dark Pact in the Shooting Phase, then again in the Assault Phase. And perhaps on your opponents turn: Overwatch and Assault phase!

 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Prot

[RolandTHTG]

I'm looking forward to Noise marines. Sonic blasters have usually been something around a bolter's strength, but with more shots. Activating Lethal hits on that is definitely something I'm excited for.  

[Dr_Ruminahui]

One thing that is interesting is the way so many rules all interact with critical hits or wounds.  While a critical "roll" (whether it to be to hit, to wound, or some other type we haven't seen) are normally on a 6, they aren't limited to only being a 6.  As explained in the article about terminators, "Anti" weapons generate critical hits on a certain roll against certain targets - so, for example, chain fists which are Anti-Vehicle 3+ get critical wounds on a roll of 3+, not just autowounds.

 

So, while we haven't seen any interactions yet that expand the range of critical hits, we should keep our eyes out for them - anything that would let you generate critical hits on a 5+ (or better) obviously improves our army mechanic.  Unfortunately the "anti" rules are for wounds, not hits, otherwise they would be an excellent way of triggering it.

 

One place this makes a big difference is the conversion beamer seen in the Leagues of Votann faction feature.  It has the conversion rule (which generates critical hits on a 4+ if farther than 12" from target) as well as sustained hits D3, meaning every hit roll of 4+ actually generates 1+D3 hits.  Now obviously that weapon is not in our army and therefore it isn't directly relevant, but to me it is a good example of how the rules that generate critical hits on a range greater than just a 6 are potentially more powerful than the "auto hits" rules we are more familiar with and often revert to as a shorthand in describe these effects.

 

I'm going to, before I play, do some serious number crunching for the units I typically field (against the units I typically face) to determine in what circumstances it will be worthwhile to use Dark Pacts and which Dark Pact is better in that circumstance.  My gut feeling is doing it to get lethal hits from cultist units will be worth it (unless the cultist unit is small) as getting autowounds on S 3 weapons is a big gain and self-inflicted mortal wounds (which they will likely get due to their expected crappy leadership) are less painful with their (expected) cheap point cost - but even there I'll want to figure out where the "break point" lies for whether the potential damage is worth the potential pain.

 

It does seem to be a rule that favours larger squads, which to me is nice in that it favours my own preferences.  It does make it a bit "win more", as it becomes less powerful as our units become smaller.

 

And yes, it is cool to see the dramatic improvement of autocannons - though we'll have to see what the other weapons are like (and all of them are costed) before we can say whether they are worth taking over lascannons or missile launchers.

 

One bit of a downer is for combiweapons - at least where we have seen them, they all seemed to be rolled into one mediocre profile.  Not that such is necessarily going to happen to ours - but it is likely.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[WrathOfTheLion]

If models like Chosen or Chaos Terminators can get a better rewards for the Dark Pact, or units like the Dark Apostle give an extra bonus, it could go from alright to great.

 

I'm just imagining getting devastating wounds on some chainfists.

[MegaVolt87]

If loyalists get merged profiles and fixed box loadouts, I think I can live with what has happened to CSM. 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

1 hour ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

If models like Chosen or Chaos Terminators can get a better rewards for the Dark Pact, or units like the Dark Apostle give an extra bonus, it could go from alright to great.

 

I'm just imagining getting devastating wounds on some chainfists.

 

My expectation is that Chosen and/or Terminators will get both effects of Dark Pacts.

[Prot]

I have to admit the combi weapon is a bit of a concern. It’s long as I’ve been playing chaos it’s been a bit of an iconic, and potent weapon for Chaos. But we’ll see if all combi weapons fall under that umbrella.  
 

I do think chosen and Termies getting both dark pacts is a good idea and maybe even probable, but I do hope we have more reason to use chosen in 10th. Possessed again could be terrifying in 10th 

 

[TrawlingCleaner]

I think that assuming the Combi profiles are the same for everyone, they're very interesting in my opinion. They've pivoted it into a Mortal Wound gun vs Infantry (Anti-Infantry 4+ means Devastating wounds triggers on a 4+ vs Infantry instead), however there's definitely a "Mouth Feel" element to the new profile. Everyone reacts differently to different abilites and rules and there's some that you just can't get on with or "Mouth Feel"

 

I did some dirty maths on the comparison between the new combi and both plasma profiles, it's not overall worse but it's not overall better. Both Plasma and Combis have their preferred targets that the other one struggles more with. It's a very different beast for sure!

They're not very good vs Tanks thats for sure however with the new toughness increases, Melta and Plasma aren't looking too great either

 

With a unit of Terminators or a unit of Chosen, I think Sustained Hits and Combis will shred other elite infantry (this new gun excels vs TEQs with an invuln), that's before you were to use Abaddon's Reroll hit Aura. It's particularly nasty!

Between the Toughness increases, Combi changes and Accursed weapons, I do think it's pushes Terminators and Chosen from Anti-Infantry focused with the ability to still swing into tanks with Melta, Plasma and PFists to now be almost solely Elite Infantry hunters. You'll still have the ability to swing into those hardier targets if you need it with Lethal Hits too.

For me personally, I think this is a good thing. It gives our Tanks, Daemon Engines and Heavy Weapons a chance to pull their weight and have a reason to be brought

 

 

[danodan123]

Curious to hear what everyone believes will end up being our 'anti tank'.

 

I can think of lascannons on land raiders, predators and havocs.

 

Oh and also obliterators with their new weapon stats.

 

 

 

 

[Prot]

Anti-infantry 4. Is that MW on a to wound roll of 4+? Interesting. 

 

 

This is the Combi Weapon shown on the Termie Captain from the patrol box:

 

- Anti-Infantry 4, Devastating Wounds Rapid Fire 1.

(Storm bolter appears largely unchanged.)

 

If we load up Chosen with Combi Bolters, this could be quite savage.  If we were to assume some form of Dark Pact Bonus, plus an Icon this gets really spicy.

This is one of those squads that will be able to fully leverage Dark Gods in multiple phases (unlike something like Possessed).

 

Someone please fact check me: The combi bolter translates into: 1 shot at 24". 2 shots at 12" A To Wound roll of 4+ is a mortal wound on Infantry keyword. A To Wound roll of 6 is a mortal wound on any target. 

 

This might be the piece that is selling those Sternguard in the boxset, but helps out Chosen quite a bit as well. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yes, I think your understanding of it tracks, Prot.  So with both anti-infantry 4+ and devastating wounds means any roll to wound of 4+ against infantry both auto-wounds and inflicts its wounds as mortal wounds - and doing the same on a 6+ to everything else.  Assuming that both normal and mortal wounds work the same as they do now (which is a pretty big assumption, actually) and they "spill over" between models, this means that devastating wounds are particularly interesting on weapons with a damage characteristic of more than 1 - for example, a thunder hammer (which I think has been shown to be D2 and devastating wounds) would kill 2 guardsmen/tau/etc. on a 6 to wound.  It does show that the really interesting part of the critical roll rules (at least of what we have seen so far) is when you can combine expanded critical roll ranges with rules that trigger off of them.

 

Unfortunately, Dark Pacts doesn't interact with any of that, being on hit rolls as opposed to wound rolls - though, I suppose sustained hits gives you more chances to wound and interacts in that way.  On the other hand, from what I've seen lethal hits would seem to circumvent that, as nothing I've seen so far suggests to me that auto wounds convert into critical wounds or a roll of any particular value, but rather they don't count as a roll at all.  That said, this is all supposition at this point and we will need to wait for the fine print.

 

One note is that the rules we have seen have loyalist bolters as A1 rapid fire 1 while our bolters are A2 with no rapid fire - if our combibolters follow the same pattern, we can expect them to be slighting better than their loyalist variant (when was the last time that that happened, for anything? )

[Prot]

Whoa... just picked this out of the World Eaters article:

 

 

This is something that definitely has to be planned for. I always really disliked transports killing contents as some units are just so expensive, and some are so cheap this seemed lopsided. If that's gone , I'm happy for it however this is big for any assault army wanting to use transports since 'auto battle shocked' means No strats and no Objective Secured.

 

29 minutes ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

 

 

One note is that the rules we have seen have loyalist bolters as A1 rapid fire 1 while our bolters are A2 with no rapid fire - if our combibolters follow the same pattern, we can expect them to be slighting better than their loyalist variant (when was the last time that that happened, for anything? )

 

So true, and I'll gladly take it!

[WrathOfTheLion]

Yes, your understanding is correct, as anti gives it critical wounds on that roll, and devastating wounds acts on critical wounds, which normally are a natural 6.

 

It's why if you can get devastating wounds on a chain fist, all of the sudden it would do mortals on a 3+ wound roll against vehicles, which is handy while it's AP -2. A combo to look out for.

Edited May 12, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Tokugawa]

15 hours ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

I think that assuming the Combi profiles are the same for everyone, they're very interesting in my opinion. They've pivoted it into a Mortal Wound gun vs Infantry (Anti-Infantry 4+ means Devastating wounds triggers on a 4+ vs Infantry instead), however there's definitely a "Mouth Feel" element to the new profile. Everyone reacts differently to different abilites and rules and there's some that you just can't get on with or "Mouth Feel"

 

I did some dirty maths on the comparison between the new combi and both plasma profiles, it's not overall worse but it's not overall better. Both Plasma and Combis have their preferred targets that the other one struggles more with. It's a very different beast for sure!

They're not very good vs Tanks thats for sure however with the new toughness increases, Melta and Plasma aren't looking too great either

 

With a unit of Terminators or a unit of Chosen, I think Sustained Hits and Combis will shred other elite infantry (this new gun excels vs TEQs with an invuln), that's before you were to use Abaddon's Reroll hit Aura. It's particularly nasty!

Between the Toughness increases, Combi changes and Accursed weapons, I do think it's pushes Terminators and Chosen from Anti-Infantry focused with the ability to still swing into tanks with Melta, Plasma and PFists to now be almost solely Elite Infantry hunters. You'll still have the ability to swing into those hardier targets if you need it with Lethal Hits too.

For me personally, I think this is a good thing. It gives our Tanks, Daemon Engines and Heavy Weapons a chance to pull their weight and have a reason to be brought

 

 

We haven't seen the full rules of sternguard, maybe it have special abilities like "once per game, you can choose to switch the anti-infantry 3+ to anti-vehicle or anti-monster".

 

However, sternguard is a dedicated shooting unit, whether such abilities exist or not, the special abilities of chaos chosen or terminators won't be this.  

[ApulianAbaddon]

I am quite afraid of anti-tank strategy (provided there isn't much info, so it's all conjectures in my mind):

- combiweapons going unique profile, mostly focussed on anti-infantry, so we lost combimelta on both chosen and terminators

- we don't bring that many lasers and havocs are a fragile throaway platform

- obliterators can do 6 damage in short range (4 dmg on the antitank profile + melta2) but it's d3 shots so it's random, and it's not obvious that squad size can be 1-3

 

What do you think on this point?

[TrawlingCleaner]

2 hours ago, ApulianAbaddon said:

I am quite afraid of anti-tank strategy (provided there isn't much info, so it's all conjectures in my mind):

- combiweapons going unique profile, mostly focussed on anti-infantry, so we lost combimelta on both chosen and terminators

- we don't bring that many lasers and havocs are a fragile throaway platform

- obliterators can do 6 damage in short range (4 dmg on the antitank profile + melta2) but it's d3 shots so it's random, and it's not obvious that squad size can be 1-3

 

What do you think on this point?

 

This is entirely conjecture but looking at what we've seen so far, most of our Anti-Tank is likely to come from Tanks, 'Brutes and Engines. Godhammer Lascannons on the Landraider is S12, I think it's probably likely that heavy weapons on Vehicles are likely to have higher strength than heavy weapons on Infantry

[danodan123]

I'm possibly asking a silly question here, but can allied chaos daemons use dark pact?

[WrathOfTheLion]

25 minutes ago, danodan123 said:

I'm possibly asking a silly question here, but can allied chaos daemons use dark pact?

I don't think so, as they don't have Dark Pact on their datasheet.

[danodan123]

2 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

I don't think so, as they don't have Dark Pact on their datasheet.

 

Ah yes, I didnt even see they had that on the datasheets anyway! 

 

Many thanks, I was just trying to see if there was any synergy between the two factions... Maybe wishful thinking?!

[WrathOfTheLion]

47 minutes ago, danodan123 said:

 

Ah yes, I didnt even see they had that on the datasheets anyway! 

 

Many thanks, I was just trying to see if there was any synergy between the two factions... Maybe wishful thinking?!

There could be some unit synergies, maybe a sorcerer or master of possession can further interact with them.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

On 5/15/2023 at 5:43 AM, ApulianAbaddon said:

I am quite afraid of anti-tank strategy (provided there isn't much info, so it's all conjectures in my mind):

- combiweapons going unique profile, mostly focussed on anti-infantry, so we lost combimelta on both chosen and terminators

- we don't bring that many lasers and havocs are a fragile throaway platform

- obliterators can do 6 damage in short range (4 dmg on the antitank profile + melta2) but it's d3 shots so it's random, and it's not obvious that squad size can be 1-3

 

What do you think on this point?

 

This has also been a concern of mine so far.  The only weapon we've seen from our arsenal that has a strength than a lascannon (S12) is the Vindicator's Demolisher cannon, which is S14 on the Baneblade.