40k v4

hairyheretic

A couple of bits of info, gleamed from various of my mailing lists today:

From http://uk.games-workshop.com/40kuniverse/warhammer40k/warhammer40k.htm


COMING SOON - Rules Revision available to Download!

In case you haven't heard yet, a new era of war is dawning. An upgraded version of Warhammer 40,000 is on its way. The new rulebook itself will be available later this year, but we will be previewing the rules here, first.

On Monday 7th June, we will be making a summary of the changes to the rules available, for you to download for free, and use in conjunction with your current rulebook.

There are several reasons why we're doing this, the main one being that we want to keep you chaps out there happy. Whenever it is announced that we're
altering a favourite game like Warhammer 40,000, rumours fly around as to what's being changed. Not that we don't want you to get excited, you understand. Excitement is good. But worrying that your 20-strong unit of beautifully converted and painted death-dealing super-elites will be rendered obsolete by the turning of one freshly printed page is not. So this time around we're simply going to tell you what the changes to the game are up front.

Remember that all existing:

. Armies
. Races
. Codex Books

Remain valid within the updated rules.


And secondly ....

---

Posted by Mike at DakkaDakka.Com

I have seen the new 40k rulebook...

...and it rocks. I spent sometime studying it a Games
Day. I have this strange ability to all but memerize rules after reading them once, so I got a lot of stuff. I also talked for a while with Gav Thorpe and Andy Hoare and various things, which I will get into to first.

I asked about a Sammurai army for Fantasy, and they
said the would really like to do one, but not any time soon as too much stuff is already lined up. They then told me that there is a limited amount of Armies that GW can make, simply beacuse stores don't have the shelf
space to hold them all. So they are looking at ways to
"phase out" the older less popular armies, but not get rid of them. I specifically asked about Chaos Dwarves, and Gav said they have no plans for them currently, but the army list will remain official. I assume the DoW are mail order only for a smiliar reason.

This then lead into the Dark Eldar and how they fit
in. For those that don't know, I'm a big Eldar player, so I was very keen to hear this. He said there are two design stages to an army. First is the concept stage, then the actual rules/models stage. Eldar are currently in the concept stage. They are moving away from DE being "bad", and into all Eldar just being survivors. So Craftworld Eldar may appear good sometimes, but other times quite evil. Eldar just do what they need to survive. They both liked the idea of a mixed Eldar army. One including Harlequins, Dark Eldar, and regular Eldar. They still have no idea of how this will turn out, but this is
their current intent.

Now for what you are all waiting for....... NEW 40K
RULES!

Terrain
I just scanned it, but now all terrain types are defined as sizes 1,2,3. Each one confers a particluar type of cover
save, and blocks LoS or gives cover to certain models. As an example, I believe size 1 terrain (small piles of rubble and such), did not block to vehicles. Don't quote me on this one.

Movement
As far as I could tell, exactly the same, except for
one big change. All bikes, including jetbikes, now have the DE Turbo Booster ability. They may move 24" in the move phase, but may not shoot, assault, or go in difficult terrain. Their save becomes invulnerable. Go bikes.

Shooting
-The rumours are true. Heavy, pistol, and assault weapons stay the same. Rapid Fire weapons may move and shoot twice at 12", but may not assault.

-You must pass a LD test to shoot at anything other
then the closest target. This applies to Fearless and Troops that auto pass LD. However, the book defines large and small targets. As such you can ignore small targets in favor of large ones, and not have to test.
However, if you wish to shoot past the nearest large
target, you must test against LD. As an example, if you had a squad of marines in front of you, a Rhino behind them, and a Land Speeder behind the Rhino. You could ignore the Marines to shoot at the Rhino, but would
still have to take LD to shoot the speeder, because it is not the closest larget target.

-Mauleed was dead on, Vehicles may ignore the LD
tests.

-Plasma now overheats on the number of shots fired. So
a Rapid Firing plasma gun will overheat on a 1 or 2.

-Ap1 weapons will always penetrate, even if they equal
the targets armour value. Ap- weapons will only ever glance.

-Hull down is now gone. If a vehicle is wholly or
partially in cover (but you still need LoS), roll a D6. On a 1-3 it penetrates. 4-6 it glances. Similar to a cover save for vehicles.

Assault
-Mostly the same as the TAR, and as rumoured. Every
model now has leaping. Wiepout is back, but changed. You roll a D6 + Initiative value, if its less the enemy gets away, if equal or greater then the enemy roll, you destroy them and may consolidate. Makes High Init
troops pretty darn useful.

-Certain models count as more wounds, as in the TVR.
This is important for two reasons. The first is the above
wipeout rule, more models = easier to outnumber = minuses to the break check. The second is the no retreat rule. Certain troops, Fearless ones, Orks with 12
or more models, and Marines with ATSKNF, can not be
wiped out, but if caught take more wounds, based on the outnumber ratio. So if they are outnumbered 2:1, they take two wounds. 3:1 is three wounds and so on.
As far as I could tell these are saveable.

-Didn't look at characters, but Andy said they are
mostly the same as TAR.

-Mixed Armour/Toughness and what not is in effect for
all armies. I did not read that part, but I assume it is as WD said, Majority rules.

Vehicles
I only skimmed through this section, as Andy said it
is mostly the same as the TVR. As far as I could tell it was. I forget to check if fearless troops are still pinned when falling out of a vehicle. Considering that everything else in the book seemed to be worded rather well, I assume they clarified this.

Missions
-All the special rules are defined here, including
True Grit, ATSKNF, infiltrate, and so on. I didn't really read the wording, except ATSKNF, which is mostly the same. Infiltrate is changed a little, you must be 18" away, but can be seen, or 12" away, but out of LoS. A big change for Raptors. No more Double One's destroys you on Deep Strike either.

-There is a chart that tells you exactly what counts
for victory points. At half or above below and so on, and how much it counts for. I just scanned it.

-Andy said (I did not read this), that for troops that
buy a Transport as an option (Rhinos, Seprents), if the
squqad is below half, the vehicle can not hold a table quarter. Also, vehicle squadrons count as below half if they lose enough models. So a Vyper squad of three will count as under half if it loses two models, even if the last one is undamaged.

-There is a VP chart, just like in Fantasy, the describes the type of victory based on the points difference. Something like 250 is a tie, 500 a win, 1000 a victory, and 1500 a massacre. Something like that.

-There are only 6 missions (fine with me), I did not
read them.