Friday, June 22, 2012

White Dwarf Info Dump for 6th Edition


The latest White Dwarf is just about ready to be officially released, and here is what you need to know from it. After this I am sure most people that want it will have it. Then its the final push forward for next weeks 6th edition rulebook release.



I think this really does contain it all, so check it out.
via MadCowCrazy from Heresy Online
There is Only WAR!
...has sat decaying upon his Golden Throne, a sad relection of his once-glorious empire. Now the carcass of the Imperium is ready to fall, picked apart as ancient enemies stir and aliens threaten its borders, even as apostates and heretics undermine it from within.

Forging a Narrative
In 40k there's nothing more important than being able to tell a story as you play, or as we've called it in the rulebook, Forging a Narrative. With that in mind, there are a number of rules to accommodate how individual models can make a difference to the battle without bogging the game down. Some of these rules are quite subtle, such as characters being able to pick out individual targets; others are more obvious and integral to the game, like challenging your opponent to a duel.

Have you ever imagined how cool it would be to bring down a Monstrous Creature by throwing a krak grenade into its mouth? Well, you can! Have you ever wanted your army's commander to call out a rival and engage him in a duel to the death so that you may settle a grudge from a previous encounter? You can do that too!

There are a number of special rules that have been included entirely for the cinematic imagery that they bring to the tabletop.

The Hammer of Wrath special rule, for example, allows jump units to leap into combat and crush their foes beneath their armoured bulk as they hurtle down from above.

Similarly, Flying Monstrous Creatures can deliver a deadly Vector Strike as they swoop over their enemies, tearing heads from shoulders with taloned limbs as they do so.

Even a unit's desperate actions as charging enemies bear down on them is represented by the ability to make an Overwatch attack - a free round of shooting, but at Ballistic Skill 1.


Allies & Fortifications
We expanded the Force Organistation Chart to allow players to represent just such a situation on the battlefield, featuring the option to include an allied detachment as part of your standard army. Not wishing to stop there, we also included a choice of fortifications that enable players to reinforce their deployment zones with defensive emplacements, ranging from a linked section of Aegis defence lines to the mighty Fortress of Redemption.

Skyshield Landing Pads can be positioned to coordinate the arrival of your reinforcement with utmost accuracy. Many fortifications can be further augmented with a comms relay or turret-mounted anti-aircraft weapons.

Each army is led by a Warlord - a powerful, charismatic leader that represents you on the battlefield. Before every game, your Warlord makes a roll on one of the Warlord Trait tables - Command, Personal and Strategic Traits.

Some scenery types are therefore Mysterious Terrain, only revealed as flesh-searing fireblood rivers or forests of overgrown spinethorn when a unit enters its area of effect.

The Battles section of the rulebook also includes a Warzone Traits table, introducing optional rules for fighting in unusual or abnormal environments. Change things up by fighting on a high or lower-gravity battlefield or, if you're feeling particularly brave, try waging war as your forces are assailed by a planet's corrosive atmosphere or toxic mist.

There are six Eternal War scenarios, each with its own mission objectives to achieve. In many of the scenarios there are a number of objectives to contest. Some of these may house useful technology such as a targeting relay or grav wave generator, but it's also possible for an objective to have been sabotaged with proximity mines.

Under normal corcumstances, only Troops units can control objectives, but in the Big Guns Never Tire mission, for example, your Heavy Support units can capture them too, even if they are vehicles!

In each scenario, players can also attempt to complete any of the three Secondary Objectives too:
Slay the Warlord, by killing the commander of the enemy army
First Blood, by being the first to destroy an enemy unit
Linebreaker, by storming the enemy's deployment zone.

Hobbyists are introduced to a series of unique scenarios that also serve to encourage and inspire players to generate their own campaign and mission ideas.

At the rear of the rulebook lies the Appendices section, replete with handy reference sheets that include the statistics for every weapon and unit in the game (including every vehicle's Hull Points).

The Appendices also feature thirty new powers from five psyhic disciplines that Psykers can choose to generate their power from. (Is this a typo? The psyhic power cards have 34 different powers listed, 35 being the most likely as a Biomancy power was listed twice).


Having a Blast
That it's the guy in the front of your squad who always takes the first bullet is not only very cinematic, but makes you think a lot more about every move you make. I also love the fact that units are reduced to Ballistic Skill 1 when resolving Overwatch.

But ultimately, there's nothing quite as satisfying for me as yelling 'Grenade!' as your heroic Sergeant tosses a frag grenade and blasts your opponents favourite squad to smithereenes!

Dreadnoughts 3 Hull points
Jump packs re-roll the 2D6" charge distance in the Assault phase.
Rage gives +2 attacks on charge (seems Rage isn't renamed)

In the Chaos Daemons army everything causes Fear, which is nicely representative of their horror. But thats not nearly as exciting as the Flying Monstrous Creature rules. These allow my Bloodthrister and Daemon Princes to soar up to 24" across the tabletop, ignoring all but the most dedicated anti-aircraft weapons as they get ready to assault the puny mortals below.

Soul Grinder and Land Raiders have 4 Hull Points

Bikes and Landspeeders have Jink, gives them a 5+cover save and 4+ if they Turbo-boost or move Flat Out.

Foreboding: Allows the affected squad to fire at an assaulting unit at their full Ballistic Skill rather than BS1.

In addition, his psyhic hood will usually augment any rolls to Deny the Witch within 6" to a 4+ making hime awesome at countering any enemy psychic powers.

About Terminators...
anything short of a power fist or power axe just won't cut it in combat, meaning they'll benefit from their 2+ armour save most of the time.

GK Terminators are equipped with frag and krak grenades, meaning they can throw one during the Shooting phase.

About IG squad...
Perhaps the coolest part of the rules is that every man counts, as they can all move and fire (even the lascannon!), and can even make a valiant last stand when they're charged, overwatching with their lasguns at the incoming foe.

Saying that, I'm told that the Deathmarks are quite nasty, as snipers can select targets if they roll a 6 To Hit!

Necron Warriors have always been implacable on the advance, but as they're now able to rapid fire at long range as they move this is doubly true.

Ghost Arks have 4 hull points, Gauss takes off a Hull Point for every 6 rolled to penetrate.

Example of Land Raider shooting 4 weapons (it can fire one flamestorm cannon normally, another using its machine-spirit and then snap fire both the assault cannon and the multi-melta). Doesn't say anything about snap fire BS.

Tau Fire Warrior example. not only can they move and still rapid fire up to 30" away, making them higly mobile as the background suggests, but they can Overwatch these S5 guns if they're charged.

My Battlesuit is great as well - he provies nigh-on impossible to engage, as can scoot up to 2D6" way with his jetpack in the Assault phase.

MC are AP2, can halve attacks and perform Smash at double Strength.


Eternal War Mission table:
Mission 4: The Scouring
Place 6 Primary Objective markers face down on the table. These objective would be worth between 1 and 4 Victory Points for the side that controlled them, but, the value would not be revealed till after deployment.

In addition there were three Secondary Objectives - Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker and First Blood - each worth a single Victory Point. In this scenario, Fast Attack units also counted as scoring units, but are worth 1 Victory Point if destroyed.

Psyhic Power: Telekine Dome (not Domination that I thought)

Command Trait: Inspiring Presence - units within 12" can use Warlords Leadership

Personal Trait: Immovable Object - Warlord can capture objectives

FNP: Ignore any wounds on a 5+ that don't inflict Instant Death (so power weapons etc make no difference).

MC Vector Strike: D3+1 hits at the model's Strength on a unit moved over.

Interceptor rule: Allowed to shoot at a unit as it arrives from reserves

Skyfire rule: Can shoot at fliers at normal BS, rather than BS1

Deployment Zone: Hammer and Anvil - Fight along the length of the table, deploy on the short table edges.

Mysterious Terrain: Psychneuein Hive - Every Psyker on the board immediately suffers D3 S3 AP2 hits

Reserves: Flyers always arrive from reserve, 3+ to enter on Turn 2

Deep Strike Misshap Table: Opponent Places unit and back into reserve are still in (unit dies gone?)

Charging Multiple units: You lose the bonus Attack for charging and all units can Overwatch shoot you.

Flying Transports: If shot down all embarked models suffer a S10 hit with no saves allowed (not even invulnerable?)

Passengers can't disembark whilst it's zooming, during hover mode they can disembark but the flier can now be hit at normal BS.

Fleet: Re-roll charge distance

Bastions: Armour 14 all around, and an emplaced heavy bolter on each facing - automated weapons that target the nearest enemy unit. A Bastion can be used as neutral battlefield terrain or selected as a Fortification as part of the FOC, enabling you to deploy within a solid defensive stronghold. A Bastion can be upgraded with a comms relay or heavy weapons on its battlements.

Tank Traps: Impassible terrain to all non-Skimmer vehicles. Bike can attempt to manoeuvre past them, but must pass a difficult terrain test in order to do so. Against all other units, however, tank traps are treated as open ground, though and models hidden behind a set of tank traps can still claim a 4+ cover save from its solid, robust frame.

Aegis Defence Lines: Offer a 4+ cover save, but any unit that decides to Go to Ground behind a defence line gains +2 to its cover save, rather than +1. An Aegis defence line may also be selected as a Fortification choice.

Mysterious Forests: Models within a forest's boundary benefit from a 5+ cover save. However, forests are also mysterious terrain, so as soon as a unit enters a forest, you must roll on the Mysterious Forest table to discover what fate awaits your hapless models. Mysterious forests can range from brainleaf fronds, the sentient tendrils of which can dominate living beings and cause them to lash out at their comrades, to carnivorous jungle, which inflicts D3 S5 hits on any unit seeking shelter beneath its boughs.

Ruins: All ruins are treated as difficult terrain, but offer a 4+ cover save to those concealed within their shattered structute.

Wild Undergrowth: Difficult terrain and 5+ cover

Imperial Statuary: IG, SoB and all SM chapters are Fearless within 2" of an Imperial statuary (if you are wondering what the hell a statuary is it's a statue, model in example is the SM dude holding a sword statue GW came out with last year, or was it the year before that. Guess they didn't sell so they had to include them in the rulebook....).

Fuel Reserves: 5+ cover, every time a model successfully passes a cover save, roll a D6. On the roll of a 1, the barrel was filled with fuel and explodes, inflicting a S3 hit on any models nearby.

Fortress of Redemption: Comprising two bunker annexes, one main tower and housing an assortment of powerful weapons to defend against assault by land or by air, a Fortress of Redemption is all but unassailable. For 220 points, this awesome defensive stronghold can even be selected as a Fortification!.

Impact Craters: Area Terrain and grant 5+ cover


Assault on Fellstorm Airfield
Scenario: The Relic
Recover a valuable relic from no-man's-land that will help them to gin the upper hand in the ongoing conflict. The relic begins the game in the centre of the battlefield, but any scoring unit (in this mission units from the Troops section of the Force Organisation Chart) (I guess this means the Immovable Object Scoring Warlord power can't be used?) can pick it up and attempt to move it to safety. The unit carrying the relic cannot move more than 6" in a single phase and will drop the relic if killed.

Deployment Vanguard Strike: Diagonal deployment zone trunning through the centre of the board. (Top right vs bottom left side with the relic in the middle pretty much. Same as Apocalypse if you've ever played that.)

Flat Out and Run: D6 extra movement

Stunned Dreadnoughts can still Snap Shot, Snap Shots need 6s To Hit.

Krak grenade used in the shooting phase to destroy an Ork Trukk.

Still Move, Shoot and Assault as the above unit assaulted the boys that disembarked from the Trukk.

Flamers do D3 hits during Overwatch (Have fun charging 15 Burna Boys)

Fliers can chose to Evade when shot at giving them a 5+ cover save, but can only Snap Fire during their next shooting phase. Can leave the board and return from reserves.

"Da Krimson Barun, only able to fire Snap Shots having evaded last turn, gunned his engines and zoomed off the board, but would return as part of Ongoing Reserves in the following Movement Phase. (This happens during turn 3-4, does that mean reserves are now 3+ for turn 2, 2+ for turn 3, automatic on turn 4?)

Fliers can shoot Fliers with no penalties to hit. Explains the 60" ranged Stormtalon missiles.

Fliers: When destroyed scatter and damage units on ground.

"But Steve did have the last laugh when the wreckage of his Stormtalon spiralled earthwards to land directly on top of the Ork Bastion, killing three Ork Boyz in the ensuing explosion.

Units with a sergeant type model can perform Look Out, Sir, 4+ if model is not an IC (example used, Ork boy trying to save Nob...well, the nob grabbing an Ork boy to use as a bullet shield is the more likely scenario...).