New Warhammer 40,000 Edition announced!

[Karhedron]

3 minutes ago, Galron said:

Maybe in 12th they will finally get rid of the reroll disease that has plagued us for so long. 

 

They claimed that was an intention in 10th edition and then immediately revealed "Oath of Moment" giving Space Marines a moveable source of rerolls. 

[DemonGSides]

3 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

 

If balance is your only priority then sure - the game is more balanced, but it's also more predictable, less exciting, and as a result it's less fun.

I've been playing since 3rd edition, collecting since 2nd. I have no aversion whatsoever to big shake-ups and resets.

If GW don't have much to show, then this trickle isn't going to win them any points. They should just have done a big, blowout reveal of the models, and then another of the rules when they were closer to launch.

 

I disagree fundamentally on the first point.  It's still a dice rolling game and the dice still tell stories. I find the game plenty exciting and I have lots of fun. 

 

You wanted two months of silence instead of a constant refrain of reiterating that new stuff is coming and somehow think that's better, all I gotta say is I'm sure GW is thrilled you're not head of marketing.

 

After some retrospection of my own, I do think this 11th trailer is perhaps the worst of their animation offerings over the past few years. Just kind of a mashup of action scenes without much through line. But I don't get tied up by marketing stuff being meh, so it's not that big of a deal.

Edited April 14 by DemonGSides

[Orange Knight]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

 

I disagree fundamentally on the first point.  It's still a dice rolling game and the dice still tell stories.

 

The dice do tell stories.

 

The same, predictable, homogeneous, safe stories across all armies and all factions.

 

Let me clarify something just in case you mis-understand my position; I do value balance in the game, and I have played 40k competitively in the past. I've even faced off against International teams and top players at Majors.

 

I simply don't value the pursuit of balance at the expense of everything else. I recognise that the game is in a better state now, and the gap between the best and worst army is smaller. My complaint is that when I look back on every edition of warhammer that I've played, all the way back to 3rd, I consider current 40k to be the most dull and predictable that I have experienced.

 

-Do I want the game to be less balanced? No.

 

-Do I want the game to be more exciting? Absolutely!

 

-Can they achieve one without adversely affecting the other? Probably not. 

 

-Should balance take priority over fun? I don't think so!

 

---

 

Edit: Just to add, I fully intend on getting back into competitive 40k in the near future. I've scaled back my hobby time as I have a young child and my wife is not currently working, so I have a lot on my plate for the time being. The few games that I have played over the last year have thoroughly disappointed me, and I was even more let down by the new edition of Horus Heresy, but this isn't the place to complain about that! 

40k isn't a bad game in it's current state, and it's still the most expansive tabletop wargame ever. I just know that it used to be more fun, even if at the that time it had other significant problems.

 

 

Edited April 14 by Orange Knight

[brother_b]

@Orange Knight

 

You summed up my thoughts almost perfectly. It really is a bland game now, compared to even recent past editions, especially in the terms of customization, unit choice, weapon choice, etc.

 

Still, the world and lore are still amazing and we still enjoy rolling dice over some beers and 40K.

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

My complaint is that when I look back on every edition of warhammer that I've played, all the way back to 3rd, I consider current 40k to be the most dull and predictable that I have experienced.

 

I find the flavor to come from cool looking miniatures and the stories that you come up with while playing, not getting super special treatment for your guys in particular or making things random for the sake of it.

 

But who knows what the eponymous 'flavor' even means; it's never given a solid definition because everyone has their own tastes. 

 

 

Edited April 14 by DemonGSides

[Laurence]

8 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

If GW don't have much to show, then this trickle isn't going to win them any points. They should just have done a big, blowout reveal of the models, and then another of the rules when they were closer to launch.

They're only trickling right now because they also have to shill the Yarrick release. at the same time  Once that's in the rear-view, they'll open the 11th ed floodgates.

[Mogger351]

2 minutes ago, Laurence said:

They're only trickling right now because they also have to shill the Yarrick release. at the same time  Once that's in the rear-view, they'll open the 11th ed floodgates.

The faction specific changes are the only thing that can be considered a floodgate really. Given it'll just be a big errata and not a new release per se.

 

But this all reinforces that the trickle is too soon.

[jaxom]

Wazzdakka Speed-whatever makes Warbikes battleline. Might indicate a design direction for the future.

[01RTB01]

11 hours ago, Galron said:

I am with you. I was hoping they would go the way pretty much all other mainstream games(including GWs) have gone and just flat out gotten rid of rerolls almost altogether except in very rare situations. Now days a lot of stuff just is a foregone conclusion "I hit you on a 2+, reroll 1s, wound you on a 2+ reroll wounds" (yawn). Makes games faster and makes dice rolls more meaningful and suspenseful. Maybe in 12th they will finally get rid of the reroll disease that has plagued us for so long. That and go the way of Old World and have special characters but in general not make them auto or manditory includes. I hate special characters and hate even more that some army builds require them when a generic character should be able to do the same thing without feeling like you are playing with a handicap. No, Marnius Calgar and G-man or Eldrad are not showing up for every little skirmish and they shouldnt be in every game. 

 

Having some customisation for characters would help alleviate the "need" for special characters too. 

 

What they shared in the Maelstrom book I hope they run with in 11th. That'd be lovely.

 

I also echo the wish of rerolls to die. It's not a speed issue for me, just part of the game's lethality. When you have rerolls galore mixed in with lethals and sustained hits it's quite daft. Getting rid of it would be one step in helping tone down lethality.

 

The prevalence of 2s to hit, 2s to wound also needs to disappear. For AoS 4th Ed this is something they've tried to do. I sincerely hope that 40k follows suit. I'd also like them to stick with their design philosophy unlike as said above, less rerolls, btw here's oath of moment.

[HeadlessCross]

1 minute ago, 01RTB01 said:

 

Having some customisation for characters would help alleviate the "need" for special characters too. 

 

What they shared in the Maelstrom book I hope they run with in 11th. That'd be lovely.

 

I also echo the wish of rerolls to die. It's not a speed issue for me, just part of the game's lethality. When you have rerolls galore mixed in with lethals and sustained hits it's quite daft. Getting rid of it would be one step in helping tone down lethality.

 

The prevalence of 2s to hit, 2s to wound also needs to disappear. For AoS 4th Ed this is something they've tried to do. I sincerely hope that 40k follows suit. I'd also like them to stick with their design philosophy unlike as said above, less rerolls, btw here's oath of moment.

A melee equivalent for Stealth would help. Just call it Parry or something. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

 

Having some customisation for characters would help alleviate the "need" for special characters too. 

 

What they shared in the Maelstrom book I hope they run with in 11th. That'd be lovely.

 

I also echo the wish of rerolls to die. It's not a speed issue for me, just part of the game's lethality. When you have rerolls galore mixed in with lethals and sustained hits it's quite daft. Getting rid of it would be one step in helping tone down lethality.

 

The prevalence of 2s to hit, 2s to wound also needs to disappear. For AoS 4th Ed this is something they've tried to do. I sincerely hope that 40k follows suit. I'd also like them to stick with their design philosophy unlike as said above, less rerolls, btw here's oath of moment.

What caught me off guard was when some one pointed out to me you can technically reroll a successful roll to keep fishing for 6s. I just assumed the intent was to only reroll failures, and that to me is just stupid.

[Antarius]

I'm not going to join in another discussion on balance and flavour. But I will join the choir of "less rerolls, please!", as this has been one of my major complaints with the actual game since 7th(?) edition or so.

I mean, I get that poor dice rolls can be annoying in the moment, but once basically everything is rerollable we might (almost) just as well have datacards saying "this units inflicts X hits and Y wounds" and then we're even closer to just being able to "play" games by just plotting our respective army lists into an excel sheet and see who's been best at doing their math homework and thus "won" the "game". Some people who really value consistency and "balance" would probably love that - and as an added bonus, it should also be pretty easy to factor in cover modifiers from standardised terrain as it'll be even for both sides.
I'm sure this would make armies a whole lot easier to balance, so, according to some, it should be great for narrative players too!

Seriously though, rerolls are an okay mechanic but they really should be used much more sparingly. 

[Xenith]

12 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

find the flavor to come from cool looking miniatures and the stories that you come up with while playing, not getting super special treatment for your guys in particular or making things random for the sake of it.

That's not what they said though. 

 

Some random is good and leads to stories, too much random is bad. GWs attitude in 6/7th ed was that random was fun, with random psykers, warlords traits etc, now their view supported by the tourney elites is that consistent is fun, and they have stripped back the effect of dice on the game through WS2+ and rerolls, to the point where you don't need to bother actually rolling sometimes.

 

The comparative WS formerly used, and still used in heresy was a more fun and engaging system - there's no way a guardsman should have a 50/50 chance of landing a hit on Jain zar - but when they do manage to overcome the odds, it makes it more memorable.

 

We all remember the time a character managed to get like 4 5+'s to hit and smack down something they had no right to kill, whereas a generic SM captains effectively guaranteed hits on a chaos lord is pretty boring - no challenge.

[01RTB01]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

What caught me off guard was when some one pointed out to me you can technically reroll a successful roll to keep fishing for 6s. I just assumed the intent was to only reroll failures, and that to me is just stupid.

 

I can't say how much I agree with this. Being able to re roll successes for fishing is ridiculous really.

[Valkyrion]

Rerolling has been a bad idea beyond the relatively scarce master crafted and twin linked, but now you have reroll 1's, reroll misses and reroll successes but not the success you want, and have army abilities to amplify and multiply rerolls, plus tying 'exploding' (lethal or sustained or whatever) to 6's isn't representative of anything - half the time an ork hits he hits better, but a space marine only hits better a quarter of that? This is a hyperbolic example, but the elite level nature of units or factions was represented by improved X in 6 chance of hitting/wounding/surviving and we should go back to that because it's easier to balance and is still representative of the lore. 

[Emperor Ming]

21 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

They claimed that was an intention in 10th edition and then immediately revealed "Oath of Moment" giving Space Marines a moveable source of rerolls. 

Yep! I remember that too, they should hire that Bethesda guy

 

100 times less rerolls....

 

That may only be funny if you know the fallout 76 puns

[Tastyfish]

7 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

 

I can't say how much I agree with this. Being able to re roll successes for fishing is ridiculous really.

In the guardsman vs marine situation, it would make sense in giving up a chance to hit solidly for a chance to strike at a weak point, which might be your best bet when fighting a power armoured foe, however risky...

[01RTB01]

1 hour ago, Tastyfish said:

In the guardsman vs marine situation, it would make sense in giving up a chance to hit solidly for a chance to strike at a weak point, which might be your best bet when fighting a power armoured foe, however risky...

 

But that's the point of the initial roll(s). The Guardsman may get lucky and pop a shot through an eye lense or whatever. However, why should that mean they get to reroll?

 

I've recently started playing bolt action and seeing rerolls gone is so refreshing. As with everything there's arguments for and against. However, 40k is a dice based game, things can and should go wrong as per reality, otherwise what's the point if you can all but engineer an outcome? 

[Ahzek451]

 I feel like its fair to say(can always be wrong and will have to wait and see the whole picture blah blah), this edition isn't going to fix a lot of common complaints (excessive re-rolls, boring mechanics, no granular points, etc.). And wondering if this will land with a dull thud. A lot of sharks in the water, gundam, starcraft, one page, konflict, trench crusade and a resurgence in warmachine....GW is a giant, im not expecting some kind of downfall or something but one does wonder how 11th will go and if GW can afford to keep going on the path they have been on. Maybe a bit of wind taken out of the sales and nothing more. Will have to see. Ultimately this is feeling like a cleanup of 10th, but not much more than that and im not seeing too much enthusiasm in my circles at present. 

[DemonGSides]

Gundam is boring and a much smaller scale battle (and I love Gundam, and bought all the Assemble sets in anticipation for this game just to be mostly disappointed), closer to a KT in roster size, StarCraft is fun (at least at first blush) but also a smaller scale (honestly much closer to the small Skirmish size of older editions that a lot of people claim to want, so this might be a legit contender to eat some of GWs lunch) OPR is a grey amorphous blob of a IP so will never get huge, Konflict does seem to have some motion behind it, Trench Crusade has mostly squandered its early good will and inertia, and Warmachine is Warmachine.

 

I don't think much else combats 40k where it's at; the one star wars miniature game is played a bit at least around here and has similar sized forces, and so is battle tech, though that's a smaller roster size too. But as far as games of a similar size, they don't have much actual competition besides themselves with AoS, though that has also downsized a bit in the new edition.

 

This is excluding historicals, which are moderately successful in my geographic area. I'm not sure there's as much of a crossover there as people may assume. 

Edited April 15 by DemonGSides

[Lord Marshal]

And the Combat Changes article.

 

Quote

The first change you’ll notice – engagement range is now 2” instead of 1”. If you’re within 2” of an enemy unit, you’re engaged with it, and you can’t finish a move within engagement range of an enemy without charging. Crucially, you CAN now move through an enemy model’s engagement range in the movement phase.

 

In the new edition, you pick the targets of your charge AFTER you roll, and any unit can declare a charge so long as there is at least one enemy unit within 12”. This means there tends to be far fewer totally failed charges where a unit is left standing around in the open, particularly if you’re smart and position your unit to have multiple potential options depending on what you roll (including not charging at all, if you prefer).

 

 

Moving chargers is also a little more generous. The target of your charge must be within the distance that you rolled, measuring base to base, and if you can get within an inch when you move a model, you must do so – but if you can’t, you only need to move to be within engagement range. This means that charging around corners or into terrain becomes a far more forgiving endeavour, as your unit only need make it to within 2” of the enemy.

 

Crucially, you can fight any enemy within engagement range (2”), which means there’s no more of that “I’m going to stand 1” away from the wall” malarkey. Terrain can still help to limit how many models can get to the fight, but it will rarely mean that units fail a charge because the enemy has positioned a line of troopers on the other side of a barricade.

 

 

Another key change is ingress moves – which cover all types of special deployment like Deep Strike and other ways of moving in from Strategic Reserve – allow you to set up more than 8” away from enemy models, rather than the current 9”. This means that you still need to roll a 9 to successfully charge out of Deep Strike, but now your potential landing zones are larger, and you have much more flexibility to move your models around when the dice gods are kind.*

 

Pile In moves also see changes – these are now all done before the fisticuffs start, rather than each time a unit is selected to fight. The player whose turn it is resolves all of their Pile Ins first – shuffling units 3” to get as many as possible into engagement range** – followed by their opponent.

 

Fighting works much the same as it did before – players alternate between units that are eligible to fight – but the order in which those units get to fight has changed. Most importantly, the player whose turn it is now gets to pick a unit first – including when fighters on both sides have the Fights First rule. This means that one of your units that Charged will get to strike before enemy units that have the Fights First rule.

 

Once all combatants with Fights First have taken their swings, the person who would normally be next in line gets first pick from the rest of the crowd, regardless of whose turn it is.

 

 

Sometimes, in fights with a lot of separate units involved, your troops might find the models they were previously engaged with are dead by the time it’s their turn to swing. Fear not – if they are eligible to fight, but unengaged, they can make a special overrun fight that gives them a second Pile In move before picking their new targets.

 

 

Finally, when everyone is done knocking the stuffing out of each other, Consolidate moves are all made at the same time, similar to Pile In moves. They can be used to manoeuvre further into combat, leap on an enemy unit within 3”, or dash to a nearby objective. But be careful when engaging a new enemy unit that hasn’t fought yet in that phase, as they’ll still get the chance to fight despite everyone else being done.

 

More is on its way from the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 soon, as well as yet another miniature reveal from the Armageddon boxed set on Monday. While you’re waiting for the latest updates, sign up to our newsletter so you don’t miss out on anything – there’s loads more to see, and we’ve got your back.

 

 

Edited April 15 by Lord Marshal

[Captain Idaho]

On 4/14/2026 at 8:51 AM, Mogger351 said:

 

I've quite enjoyed 10th, it's just this trickle is painfully underwhelming.

 

As noted above it's feeling like a normal balance dataslate and a new mission pack drop with the added perk of buying a new rulebook.

 

I am stuck trying to think what "changes to the fight phase" they cma make without rewriting the game completely and it's likely a short list of stuff I'll go "ok, cool" and be unbothered by.

 

Oh yeah each to their own of course. 

 

Interesting to see if there's some substantial changes that require substantial FAQ and errata to existing army books.

 

But yeah I totally agree it just feels like a bi-annual dataslate change rather than a new edition right now. Which doesn't win anyone onside really.

[MoriyaSchism]

37 minutes ago, Ahzek451 said:

 I feel like its fair to say(can always be wrong and will have to wait and see the whole picture blah blah), this edition isn't going to fix a lot of common complaints (excessive re-rolls, boring mechanics, no granular points, etc.). And wondering if this will land with a dull thud. A lot of sharks in the water, gundam, starcraft, one page, konflict, trench crusade and a resurgence in warmachine....GW is a giant, im not expecting some kind of downfall or something but one does wonder how 11th will go and if GW can afford to keep going on the path they have been on. Maybe a bit of wind taken out of the sales and nothing more. Will have to see. Ultimately this is feeling like a cleanup of 10th, but not much more than that and im not seeing too much enthusiasm in my circles at present. 

Gundam is in no way a Warhammer competitor. If it was they would have made an actual Universal Century Gundam wargame instead of whatever the hell Gundam Assemble is. GA is a huge disappointment in my eyes. Gundam has all the components for a pseudo-historical wargame and they just refuse to do it. 

[Ahzek451]

24 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

OPR is a grey amorphous blob of a IP so will never get huge. 

Ill bite on this a little, never wise to deal in absolutes, but i agree odds are its likely it never will be, but we will see. They just finished shipping out their first Kickstarter box and as far as I could tell it was pretty successful and its a quality box. And anecdotes be anecdotes, but one of my advantages is ive moved around the states quite a bit and I keep in contact with a few gaming groups. One of which were die hard warhammer enthusiasts for 15+ years in Alaska, fed up with GW prices, availability, and a general lack of interest in current rules roughly about 20 of these guys have abandoned GW for OPR. And they love it. Now, im not going to sit here and say they love the lore(or lack of), but they make their own. Might I add, another point of contention with GW is a downward trend in lore quality for them. From there perspective, GW lore is getting worse anyway, but OPR is more affordable, easier to play, and easier to access...so if they have to fill the gaps in lore then so be it. 

[Mogger351]

19 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

And the Combat Changes article.

 

 

Yeah, it's still in the "could have been an email" category. I'm sure game impact will be notable and melee is on the up, but the change list is nothing exciting imo.