Profiles, Weapons & A Teaser Of The New Warhammer 40,000 World Revealed
April 26, 2017 by brennon
Games Workshop has continued to explore the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 this week with a peak at the new Unit Profiles for the game and a teaser looking towards the future of the background too. Take a look at the teaser trailer above...
It looks like we're going to be seeing the forces of Chaos with a tight grip over the Imperium of Man and the Galaxy at large. The flavour of things right now is pointing towards the Death Guard too if the teaser trailer is anything to go by and maybe we'll see Mortarian making a move with a new model in the upcoming edition.
Profile Changes
Things have also changed when it comes to the profiles in the game. They now follow a similar style across the board from troops to characters and up towards monsters and vehicles.
As you can see the movement value statistic has returned and it looks like it accounts for the style of unit. For example, Terminators are one inch slower than a regular Marine which makes sense.
It's also good to see that they've brought in a simple + roll when it comes to attacking and shooting. This was mostly the case for Ballistic Skill but it streamlines everything when it comes to combat and shooting now.
You can see that across the board the statistics for strength, toughness and wounds have increased substantially to hopefully represent the way units fight better. Strength & Toughness will still work on an opposing scale so it will range from 2+ to 6+ in terms of dice rolls but overall it seems pretty streamlined and easy to get your head around.
Weapon Profiles
Today we also got a look at Weapon Profiles...
Each of them has a range (not surprising) value plus a type which will no doubt dictate how it can be used in the game. Strength is then equivalent to the target's Toughness and the AP value works like Rend in Age of Sigmar where it modifies the save of the individual you're shooting at.
As you can see a Lascannon also does D6 damage, another addition based on its testing in Age of Sigmar no doubt.
We'll know more when the actual rules come out explaining how this all works together but I have high hopes.
What do you think of what we know so far?
"It looks like we're going to be seeing the forces of Chaos with a tight grip over the Imperium of Man and the Galaxy at large..."
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Has Initiative gone, or had that already gone in an earlier edition?
It is gone now. Was in the other article. Now the Attacker allways strikes first.
What about in an ongoing combat? Are you the ‘attacker’ if it’s your turn, or are there no ongoing combats?
I would assume it will work on a squad activation basis like AoS, so you ‘choose’ which unit to activate when maybe?
I don’t think they’ve mentioned that yet. In fact, don’t think they’ve mentioned anything about how combat works beyond chargers striking first. Could mean: A) person who’s turn it is goes first B) everyone goes together after new chargers C) at the end of combat units ‘bounce’ and you’ll need to charge in again Or something else. C could be interesting as it’d give shooty armies a chance to pull back and fire rather than stand around getting minced. Although if they did go down this route, it might be best if there was a min distance for stand and… Read more »
It is activation based like AoS. They did say you could interrupt the activation order with the command points so it is pretty much confirmed.
@cabaltrainee have they actually confirmed it’s activation based like AoS, or did they mean command points can be used to interrupt a turn for special activations?
The command points to interrupt read to me like it was still I Go U Go, but you had a resource that could be spent on interfering with your opponent’s turn, amongst other things.
Looks good and simple to read and understand. I do not know how Age of Sigmar plays, so I can’t compare, but it looks to me like it’s going in the right direction.
@redben – don’t worrying about playing the game anymore, that’s just a detail.
I also noticed a Hasbro thumbnail below this one – I know subliminal programming when I see it!
The weapon stats Rapid Fire etc remind me of Epic
Changes to weapons look interesting. I’m guessing D doesn’t ‘overflow’, so a lascanon will only kill a single guardsman, but would be good at blasting apart tanks and big gribblies, which (if so) is a nice change to them.
I’m also guessing that with the removal of templates, things like missile launchers will be like the flamer example with a D3 or D6 as part of its type (or considering there are different missiles maybe something like frag will be Type:HeavyD6, Damage:1 and krak will be Type:Heavy1, Damage:D3)
It does overflow in AoS, but how close they will use that ruleset as blueprint is anyone’s guess.
It says in the original article that it doesn’t overflow, the d6 damage would be to one single model not a unit. So a lascannon is good vs a vehicle, hero or monster but overkill vs a one wound model.
Some weapons can inflict hits across an entire unit (anything that previously used a template) whereas some units can inflict multiple hits on a single target (such as the Las Cannon). I would assume this will be done via some kind of key word denoting how damage can be targeted.
There is a difference between hits and damage/wounds. Like a flamer will do d6 hits but each one does only one wound if it gets thru, while a lascannon only does one hit but if that hit successfully wounds and isn’t saved then it does d6 wounds.
Everything I’ve seen so far about 40k v8 seems to be moving in the right direction. There have been precious few details about how the game actually plays so far, but it feels like we’re getting walked through the basic rules.
First we talked about the stat lines for figures, now their weapons, and tomorrow is movement. Shooting and Assaults can’t be far behind. I’d also point out that we haven’t seen a profile of an entire unit, which will help to tie things together once we do.
still interested
lot of similarities with 2nd edition in terms of movement, weapons profile (variable damage, save modifier) now make sense why they resurrected Necromunda rules. Interesting the gradual degradations of effectiveness of vehicles and big guys. Now if they only will make the game playable even without flyers and oversized models I might think about getting a little army
Yeah, I agree most flyers really have no place in 40K. At least not the supersonic jets and small fighters. Troop dropships and hovering flyers are a little different but IMO should choose to either fly and leave the table or hover and act as a skimmer and hence be easy enough to shoot at.
I like some of the big stuff though. Baneblades and stompas are just cool.
They are very cool undoubtably, I used to have a resin banblade but was only used for special narrative scenario and not as a tank…in a 6×4 it’s kind of ridiculous;)
Well that looks interesting.
So far i’m 50/50 some things I really like and some I don’t. The only thing that worries me is they are making cuts in the thematic department to achieve some of the streamlining. As much as I enjoy AoS it has definitely made sacrifices and 40k 8th so far seems to have been heavily influenced by AoS. I’ll still remain cautiously optimistic.
What cuts are they making in the thematic department? Maybe I have missed an announcement.
So far IMO a flat to hit number in close combat isn’t very thematic, as a grot is just as good at hitting one of his own as he is at hitting a primarch. I understand why its done its probably an ok thing to do but it is a sacrifice. Also everything being able to wound everything once again makes sense from a streamlining point of view but a tank is literally made to take 1000s of shots from small arms and still advance it shouldn’t be able to be taken out or weakened by autopistols. Also i’m still… Read more »
If you consider killing a vehicle making a mobility kill or baling the crew more than ‘0 wounds means it explodes’, then taking out a tank by pouring on small arms fire makes sense. You’re not blowing up fuel lines or cooking off ammo, but enough shots will take out sight blocks or jam turret traverses eventually. If you sat around firing thousands of small caliber rounds at a tank, you’re going to do damage to it eventually. But there’s much more effective options then just charging in with a blob of guardsmen.
The more I hear about this the more I like it. Might 40k finally be as fun to play as it always should have been? I hope so.
I sure hope split fire is a standard rule for all units now .. being able to charge a different unit than the one you shot is another. Overwatch that makes sense. Rules for leaving melee with risks included. Adjust melee accordingly but dont have rules that turn the models into wooden playing peices because of balance/melee balance/etc whatever.
Some of those profiles are getting me a tad nostalgic for the days of Rogue Trader and 40k 2nd Edition….
Yep. I cut my teeth on 2nd Edition and stopped playing after 4th. It really looks like they are bringing that 2nd back minus the fiddly bits.
That’s odd. They don’t look particularly like 2nd ed stuff to me (now Shadow War: Armageddon definitely looks like 2nd ed to my eyes). I guess the inclusion of movement harkens back to 2nd, but the way WS is written makes it clear that this game will not use anything like 2nd ed close combat. And writing out BS as a 3+ makes me wonder if they’re planning on having modifiers like 2nd ed or if they’ll keep the rolls all static (2nd ed was all about the roll modifiers, and 3rd ed got rid of every one of them).
I have 40k set out on my coffee table and I still can’t figure out how to play it.
Wish it would go back to simple 2nd edition with wargear cards 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GV6sUq7axY
2nd ed was the simple one? That’s funny, I started playing in 2nd ed, and I’ve always thought of 3rd ed as the simple one.
more/new rules to remember.
Prime example of why much of this is good. Because he loves the look of them, I bought my 8-year old son a tyranid codex on the cheap. He loves math, and was asking how the stats work. Let me tell you, explaining WS, BS, and AP were a major pain. Not really hard, but you realize how unnecessarily complicated they are when you have to explain them to someone that young. Now, I’m not saying every game should be simple enough for an 8 year old, but many legacy 40k rules were convoluted and difficult to understand without really… Read more »
Terminators have-TWO-WOUNDS! “Hell it’s about time!”
My own custom Necromunda-Inquisitor mixed ruleset has had that for years… but yay now it’s “official”. So, instead of having to look at an initiative number you can look up a movement value!.. streamlining?
Can’t wait for this to be released! it has to be soon, I’m guessing June – July. They’ll keep the end of the year for Shadespire release.
I heard the main rules will be about 11 pages.
I never thought I’d see the day, but I’m actually quite forward to some 40k in well over a decade- got a load of 2nd ed. era Deathguard sat in a box just waiting for an excuse to hit the table; between this and Shadow War: Armageddon, they might just get their chance! 🙂
I haven’t been following and don’t play AoS – so is this IGOUGO still?
People of 40k still seem to think this is the only way to play. Command points seems to allow some sort of reaction from the passive player. I hope they have done more though, hope they reveal more on this soon as its kind of a deal breaker for me
The more I think about it I can see the logic in having this new version match close to the AoS rules as it would be easier for people to switch between the games with a shorter learning curve.
Would also make sense when the old world/aos is revealed to be just a dream the emperor has whilst on the golden throne for 10 thousand years….
Plus, Age of Sigmar has Squats now, so it would just make sense if you could port them over…