TACTICS TALK: THE LAY OF THE LAND

And that is a hill...and that is a building...

Hello there everyone, with the release of 9th Edition one of the big topics is the new rules for terrain.  This edition looks like it is going to have a significantly better grasp of rules for terrain being more clear and practical.  Not to mention a bunch of new rules and abilities to add more tactical elements to the game.  Terrain has been divided into four categories, hills, obstacles, area terrain, and buildings, then to further give pieces definition there are traits that can be assigned to them, but that is getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Look, a hill.

HILLS are probably the most basic piece of terrain.  Models use normal rules for moving over them, standing on them, standing behind them, etc etc.  HILLS can be modeled right into the battlefield, like the plastic Realm of Battle board, or they can be physical pieces added to the table, which is far more likely since most tables nowadays are covered with neoprene mats.  Regardless of what shape they take, they are considered to be part of the battlefield itself.

OBSTACLES are a little more varying and can encompass things like barricades, ruined walls, barbed wire, or it could be just a huge rock.  Infantry, Beast, and Swarm units gain the benefits of cover when they are within 3" of an OBSTACLE unless you can draw a line from the attacking model to any part of the target model without touching the OBSTACLE.  Here is a funny little note, just gaining the benefit of cover doesn't do anything, you need to have rules on the piece of terrain or the models affected by the terrain that actually come in to effect when the unit gains the benefit of cover, but that comes later.  Models can move up, over, and down OBSTACLES using the normal movement rules, and they follow the normal rules for determining line of sight through it.

Area terrain...

...also area terrain

AREA TERRAIN is where shit gets fuzzy cause it basically covers everything else that has a base or footprint which is defined as a boundary of the terrain feature at the ground level.  This can include things such as ruins, forests, craters, mine fields, I mean the list really is endless.  Keep in mind that the footprint will not always be obvious and should be discussed prior to the game.  Infantry, Beast, and Swarm unit gain the benefit of cover while they are within it.  Thanks to our new definitions of WITHIN, we know that this means every model in the unit needs to be touching the terrain feature.  AREA TERRAIN follows the normal rules for movement and line of sight yada yada yada.

BUILDINGS are typically things like fortifications.  They follow the normal rules for line of sight, but they cannot be moved across, are considered units as opposed to terrain features, and enemy BUILDINGS can be attacked.  I'm not going to talk about them much as they really don't show up in tournament tables very often, and they typically have a fairly well defined set of rules for them.

Now we get into the traits, which is where the real rules come from, and I have to start with a complaint.  They have fucked up right from the get go and have failed to consistently use their special terms.  Specifically "Within" and "receives the benefit of cover".  The above rules specify what is required to "receive the benefit of cover" for each category of terrain, so why not KEYWORD that term and re-use it?

The very first trait, DEFENSIBLE, is a perfect example of what I mean.  They could have replaced the first two paragraphs with something like: If an Infantry unit would receive the benefit of cover while within a piece of AREA TERRAIN or an OBSTACLE when an enemy unit declares a charge against it, then it can either Hold Steady or it can Set to Defend, unless it is already in ENGAGEMENT RANGE of another enemy unit.  I'm not going to drone on and on about this lack of consistency, but know that it is rampant through this section of the book.

Anyway...back to the point.  Hold Steady allows the unit receiving the charge to fire Overwatch and hit on 5+, while Set to Defend prevents the unit from Overwatching, but gives them a +1 to hit in the next Fight phase.  Take note that this +1 to hit has no restrictions as to what enemy unit you can attack, so you still get this +1 to hit bonus if multiple units charge you.  This is a great little boost since Overwatch was turned into a stratagem.  Its also a great boost for those times when units are not visible to the target of the charge as they will at least get a bonus to hit should they survive.

Next trait is DEFENCE LINE, which basically changes the ENGAGEMENT RANGE to 2" as long as the enemy unit is within 1" of the terrain feature and you end your charge touching the terrain feature.  This means that only a single model of the target unit has to be within 1" of the terrain feature, and there is no mention of having to be on opposite sides, or drawing a line over the piece or anything like that.  There are stipulations on being on opposite sides of the terrain feature and within 2" in order to make attacks against the target, but if you are on the same side you should be able to Pile In to normal ENGAGEMENT RANGE.  This eliminates players using wide barricade like pieces, where you can't physically get within ENGAGEMENT RANGE, as a way to keep from getting charged.

BREACHABLE means that Infantry, Beast, and Swarm units can walk through any part of the terrain feature.  Typically, you have to measure up, across, and down a terrain feature when moving over it, but not in this case.  This makes things like networks of short walls and ruins much less tedious to navigate.

DIFFICULT GROUND subtracts 2" when making a Normal Move, Advance, Fall Back, or when charging over this terrain feature, unless the model has FLY.

DENSE COVER confers a -1 to hit penalty when shooting at a unit that receives the benefit of cover from a terrain feature.  This does not apply if the shooting unit is within the terrain feature.  The terrain feature has to be 3" or taller and does not give the penalty to unit whoa re shooting at Aircraft or models with a wounds characteristic of 18 or more.

An UNSTABLE POSITION cannot have models be placed on top of it.  They can move up, over, and down them, but they can't end their move on top of them.

Models do not receive the benefit of cover from terrain features that are an EXPOSED POSITION while on top of them.

OBSCURING terrain that is over 5" tall gets into some janky shit as it completely blocks LOS when looking through or over it but uses normal LOS for units that are within it.  However it does not block LOS for Aircraft or models that have a wound characteristic of 18 or higher.  So get this, an Infantry model on one side of an OBSCURING terrain feature could see a Knight on the other side of the terrain feature, but the Knight could not see the Infantry model.

I kind of like this rule, mainly due to how it kind of fucks over gun line static shooting armies.  It makes seeing across the table is incredibly difficult, and if you can't navigate your way to a better vantage point and create lanes of fire, then you're BONED.

A unit that is receiving the benefit of cover from a terrain feature that is LIGHT COVER gets a +1 to saving throws against ranged attacks.  This does not apply to invulnerable saving throws.

HEAVY COVER grants a +1 to saving throws against melee attacks, which does not apply to invulnerable saving throws.

SCALEABLE terrain can be moved through horizontally and vertically by Infantry, Beasts, Swarms, and models that can fly.  These models can also be set up on and end their movement on top of this feature.  This is pretty much what ruins were in the previous edition.  Note that they have not really solved the problem of putting a Repulsor on top of a Ruin.  Unless they remove the FLY keyword from it and replace it with something like HOVER, which will need to be created still.

INSPIRING terrain gives a +1 to Ld to units that are wholly within 6" of it.

So there we have all the terrain traits, and thankfully they give us some common examples of terrain features that bring these all together.

Ruins are AREA TERRAIN that have the SCALEABLE, BREACHABLE, LIGHT COVER, DEFENSIBLE, and OBSCURING TRAIT.  What they all means is that you can move through the walls and floors, get a +1 to your saving throws from ranged attacks, can't see through it or over it, but can see into and out of it.  Also, you can Hold Steady or Set to Defend which I think is a great addition.  I do have some reservations though as ruins tend to be a quite popular terrain feature, and they tend to be quite large to keep set up and tear down of tables relatively simple.  I cold see the OBSCURING rule that these pieces have slowly see them taking the place of the "NOVA L" pieces that are popular in the tournament scene.  Also keep in mind that the OBSCURING trait takes effect from the entire base, or footprint of the feature.  In the case I show above that means that the empty front right corner will block LOS over it, even though you can clearly see past it.

Craters are one of the most under valued pieces of terrain out there and I really hope that they can make a bit of a surge to popularity.  They are AREA TERRAIN that have the LIGHT COVER and DIFFICULT GROUND traits which make them a perfect position for small fire base units.

The armoured containers are OBSTACLES with the LIGHT COVER, SCALEABLE, and EXPOSED POSITION traits.  This means that you can climb on top of them, but you can't walk through them.  They give you a cover save, but not if you are on top of them, and the unit has to be within 3" of it to gain that cover save.  I really like these containers and how they play on the table.  They are typically used just to block LOS, but the way they are set up above, with little cracks in their set up is probably the best way to set them up now.  They are serious deterrents to armies that need to be mobile, but don't have FLY or some other ability to ignore having to move up and down terrain.

Barricades have gotten a ton of rules and I think will likely see a ton of use.  They are OBSTACLES, with DEFENCE LINE, LIGHT COVER, HEAVY COVER, DEFENSIBLE, UNSTABLE POSITION, and DIFFICULT GROUND.  That's a ton of rules that make them really strong pieces to hide behind and they don't take up a ton of space which make them great pieces to fill out the spaces in between your larger terrain features.  You will want to use them sparingly though as you don't want to saturate the entire table.

Woods are another great piece of terrain that can break up the monotony of ruins and shelled out buildings.  They are AREA TERRAIN that have the traits DENSE COVER, BREACHABLE, DEFENSIBLE, and DIFFICULT GROUND.  I like the new addition of DENSE TERRAIN trait as it gives pieces of terrain different uses in different situations.  For example, against units that have tons of shots, bonuses to hit, and re-rolls, the Woods is not going to help a lot.  However, Tau don't deal real well with penalties to hit, and with a mediocre BS the penalty really helps.

Battlefield Debris is an interesting OBSTACLE that is also an EXPOSED POSITION.  This means that it doesn't really do anything on it's own.  It doesn't do anything unless the model itself has a rule that gives it some benefit from receiving the benefit of cover like the Raven Guard chapter tactics or Scout camo cloaks.  For the most part, these things will just get in the way and slow down ground based models.

Overall, I think these rules are really going to move the game in a better direction.  There is going to be a couple months of playing around with quantity and variety of terrain, but after that things will smooth out and we will have ourselves a decently solid table set up.  Thanks for reading.

Til next time, keep them dice rollin.

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COMBAT IS DEAD, LONG LIVE COMBAT

Hey there everyone, welcome back to my flurry of posts that I've been pumping out.  This one, as the title indicates, is going to cover some of the changes that combat units are going to have to deal with in the new edition.  I won't stop there though as I will delve into a couple other areas of the game where I have noticed some "interesting" interactions.

Lets start with a change that I particularly dislike, which is the change to the "support" range for the "second rank" of models in combat.  This has been change from 1" to 1/2".  This means that you could get a model in ENGAGEMENT RANGE and not have any supporting models make any attacks.  Now of course you can just PILE IN so you can get more models in range, but all in all you will not get as many models in range of making attacks which greatly lessens the effectiveness of combat.  As you can see by the visual I have provided, the Black Legion models in ENGAGEMENT RANGE have a red bubble which represents the 1" "support range" from 8th while the Red Corsairs have a blue bubble which represents the 1/2' "support range" of 9th.  Surprise, I can fit more models in the 1" bubble than the 1/2" bubble.

Now I can only guess as to why exactly they did this, but I'm going to assume it might have something to do with models with 25mm bases being able to fight in "4 ranks" so to speak.  Not only is this a hit against assault armies, it's a hit against horde armies who typically look for those overwhelming numbers of dice in order to make up for lackluster stats.  Combat is supposed to be brutal and decisive, this change is going to draw out combats and make them less conclusive.

There are some shenanigans you can pull with this and Heroic Intervention.  Now that you have to be able to get into ENGAGEMENT RANGE with the target of a charge, or the charge fails, you can hide Characters behind the front line, 3" away from the edge of a friendly model's ENGAGEMENT RANGE and even make it impossible with model placement for the enemy unit to make it to the Character's ENGAGEMENT RANGE.  Then you can HI the Character forward into the opponent's ENGAGEMENT RANGE or into a position that forces him to move a certain way.  This could be either because he wants to try to avoid your Character, because your Character is now the closest enemy model, or because your Character made base contact with enemy models preventing them from moving further.  All the while your Character is safe from being attacked that round.

In the below visual the Black Legion charged the Red Corsairs and just made it into ENGAGEMENT RANGE with one model.  The RC character HI out front and made base contact with the BL model, preventing that model from getting into the 1/2" range required for supporting models to make attacks.  After piling in only a few BL models will be in range of making any attacks and none are close enough to get the second rank to fight.

EDIT: Something has been pointed out to me on one of my Facebook posts that I missed.  Charging units CAN attack a model that has performed a Heroic Intervention.  So keep that in mind as this is still a valid tactic, but you are now putting your character at risk of being attacked.

Keep in mind all of the above needs to be accomplished while your models stay in unit coherency, and now that your models have to be within 2" of two different models in a unit of 6+, this gets trickier to do.

The easiest way to maintain COHERENCY with larger unit is to keep them all in a ball, but if you need to keep them stretched out then you can keep them close enough together so that the model on the end is 2" away from the 3rd model in line, then it gives you options from where to take casualties from as the pics show.

There is a way to use the UNIT COHERENCY CHECKS to your advantage, if you DON'T want to stay in combat.  As you pull models, leave at least one model deep in the enemy unit.  In the example below, the Black Legion unit has charged the Red Corsairs and killed 2 of them.  As you can see there is one model left that the Black Legion can surround, it is also the closest enemy model for when the Black Legion consolidate.  Further more it is also preventing the Black Legion from getting within ENGAGEMENT RANGE of the other 2 Red Corsair models, which means in the Morale Phase the surrounded Red Corsair model will be removed due to it being out of COHERENCY.  This will leave the last 2 models completely free in their movement phase.

Lastly, I have to complain a little bit, I don't really like the new COMBAT ATTRITION TEST.  There is a weird bell curve that makes the test more deadly to units that lose fewer models and fail their MORALE TEST.

Lets compare Cultists to Marines, them taking casualties, and how they respond to a failed MORALE TEST.  Lets start with the Cultists, who will almost automatically fail a MORALE TEST (a roll of 1 is auto pass) after losing only 6 models.  Assuming you have a unit of 30 that means the COMBAT ATTRITION TEST will likely cause 4 to flee.  Yet if you compare that to the same unit of Cultists losing 25 models, they will likely only lose 1 to COMBAT ATTRITION TEST.  A far more devastating volley of firepower which, you would think, would have a far more devastating affect on Morale actually has a less devastating affect.  Compare those to the same unit losing 15 models, which would result in around 5 models fleeing from COMBAT ATTRITION.

Now Marines are a little different in that it takes more initial casualties for them to fail a morale test, but once they do they lose a similar number of models compared to any other unit.  If a unit of 10 Marines loses 5 models and happens to fail their MORALE, they are looking at losing 1-2 more models, however there is a chance that all 4 of the remaining models will flee.  From only losing half of the unit from actual casualties.  Going back to the Cultists, when they lose half of their unit, 15 model, they are very likely to fail their MORALE TEST, but far more likely to survive the COMBAT ATTRITION TEST with their remaining 14 models.

The fact that there are better odds of a unit of 10 Marines being wiped out from suffering 5 casualties than there is of a unit of 30 Cultists suffering 24 casualties is just plain wrong.  Man I hope my math holds up to that statement, I had to do some number aerobics 

Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to leave a comment.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

SNEAK PEAKS: NOT VERY SNEAKY

Hey there everyone, last post I take about the rules primer that is available to every one on the Warhammer Community website, and that post came with a lot of holes in it because it only covers the very basics of the game.

Well since then I have been digging through all of the sneak peaks that the Community page has released and each one has a little tid bit of additional information that slowly brings a little more focus into what the overall game is going to look like.

Secondary Objectives are a new thing and it looks like GW has taken a page out of the ITC book and implemented a ton of varying ways to earn points throughout a battle

These Secondary Objectives vary from killing CHARACTERS to performing psychic actions to holding objectives or table quarters.  All of this is awesome and really gives players a chance use their armies strengths to their advantage while exploiting their opponent's.  We did get a bit of a peak of what some of the Secondary Objectives are, but other than killing CHARACTERS, the description cut off after a couple lines.

The Command Point system has been completely revamped as well, every one starting the game with the same number of CP and using them to buy detachments.  So now, the more detachments you have, the FEWER CP you will start with.  As a bonus, your CP are refunded from the detachment that contains your Warlord.

So with everyone starting the game with the same number of CP and having to spend CP on detachments, it's looking like you will be seeing far fewer multi-detachment armies with the odd one to shore up some specific army weaknesses.

It looks like GW has also heard all the bitching and moaning about 8ths abysmal terrain rules and have cracked down on all that wishy washy rules writing.  Terrain now has 4 categories, Hills, Obstacles, Area Terrain, and Buildings.  There are also a list of traits that a piece of terrain might have, which is a list of rules that can be applied to that piece of terrain.  This is potentially a great set of rules as this allows players to create their own terrain with rules that perhaps don't have an exact equivalent to the pre-made pieces in the book.  Two of these traits are Light and Heavy cover, the former giving a +1 to saves from shooting attacks, the latter giving a +1 to saves from melee attacks.  Another interesting trait is Obscuring...

This trait sort of incorporates the ITC rule that the bottom floor of ruins blocks LOS.  Now keep in mind that these traits may not necessarily apply to every piece of terrain that meets the requirements.  I see these working more like keywords, and the next slide will show you why I think that.

As you can see the different pieces of terrain have a different set of rules.  Now, I can see the trait DEFENSIBLE listed in the ruins traits, and this is a new feature...

So, it looks like if a piece of terrain has the DEFENSIBLE trait your infantry units can pull off one of these 2 maneuvers.  And speaking of Overwatch, it appears that this is now a stratagem.  Other than only one unit being able to overwatch per phase it is pretty much the same.

The last thing to bring up today is Strategic Reserves.  Units that don't already have the ability to be set up somewhere other than the battle field can be put into Strategic Reserves and kept off the table.  This will cost a number of CP depending on the total power level of the units kept off the table, costing 1CP for up to 9 power and another CP for each 10 power after that.  Bringing them onto the field is as easy as...

Now there is a line in the article on the Community site that says it is possible for you to be able to set up your models closer than the required 9" if your models are set up within 1" of your own battlefield edge and that they could even be set up within ENGAGEMENT RANGE in that instance.  Also note that there is no limit to how late in the game reserves can show up other than if they aren't on the table by the end of the game they count as dead.  This comes into play more for AIRCRAFT as they can once again leave the table in their movement phase bringing back something from 7th edition.

Well, that's all the things I could find on the Community site, I know there are tons of other leaks as several other online personalities have gotten a copy of the books already so they can do their hype articles and battle reports.  So far things look like they are moving along smoothly.

I'll be posting another article shortly with a little bit of a deeper look into what I think the rules are going to do the game so keep an eye out for that.  Thanks for reading and feel free to comment.

Til next time, keep them dice rollin.

9TH EDITION: ANOTHER NEW DAWNING

That's right ladies and gents I'm back.  After a nice long hiatus in which I barely touched a model I've finished reading the Night Lords omnibus and have been reinvigorated to get back into the game just in time for 9th to arrive.

No, I did not get an advanced copy of the rules, GW does not deem me important enough, but the basic rules were released in PDF form on their website.  So that is what I am looking at today.  Bear in mind there are going to be more holes in my analysis than Swiss cheese as I do not know what many of the more nuanced rules are going to be such as missions and terrain and I am not going into the details of the other teased rules and stratagems.  I'm only talking about the rules that I have in print right in front of me.

So without any further self deprecation lets start this shit show off with a bang.  COHERENCY is now required between 2 models if the unit is larger than 5 models.  This means a ton of things but the most noticeable is that there will be no more daisy chains stretching across the table to hold 3 objectives, block "deep strikers" or assault lines hitting multiple units (more on this later).  However it does still look like you can have small clusters of a large unit separated from each other and still maintain coherency.  For example, if you have a unit of 30 cultists and lose 10 of them, you can pull 10 from the middle area so that you are left with 2 groups of 10 models, and as long as those individual groups of models maintain coherency then technically the whole unit is still in coherency.

To add to that there is now a UNIT COHERENCY CHECK which is done in the MORALE PHASE after a MORALE TEST (more on this later as well).  If your unit is not in coherency, then you remove models one at a time until it is.

These 2 changes to coherency have hurt combat units pretty badly.  Not only can assault units not spread out as much to optimize movement from charges, pile in, and consolidation, but there is an extra step that can be used to remove models that the assault unit may be trying to tie up.  I think this check should have actually been done in the movement phase, giving players a chance to bring their units into coherency before removing stragglers.  Death to the Possessed Bomb.

ENGAGEMENT RANGE is a new term that basically means that 1" bubble around a model that you can't enter except in the charge phase.  When you are within ENGAGEMENT RANGE you are locked in combat.  The ENGAGEMENT RANGE is not only 1" around the model, but it has a 5" vertical limit as well, meaning that your Knight, Mortarion, or any other big baddie can now smack those pesky scouts out of the first floor of that ruin, as long as they can get within 1" horizontally of them.  There goes a whole knight stratagem out the window.  This also means you don't have to actually get a model on the same level as the unit you are attacking, you can just stab your knife right up through the floor.  However, that also means that enemy models can't actually move directly below you since they can't move within ENGAGEMENT RANGE.

Models and units WITHIN and WHOLLY WITHIN have been defined.  This definition is pretty clear with little room for interpretation.  Lets hope GW can stay consistent with this terminology and not add words to muddy the waters.

Wobbly Models have also been somewhat cleared up, which I now interpret as that this is a means of keeping models safe.  You must be able to actually fit the model in the location, however, due to it's precarious position, you may want to place it elsewhere to keep it from getting damaged.  Key words being "physically possible to place the model in the desired location".

There is a COMMAND PHASE now, we don't really know what it does but there will be some stratagems or abilities that take place in this phase.  Oh, and if you have a battleforged army you gain a CP.  That's neat.

Movement has changed a bit in that there are now modes of movement that apply to the whole unit.  These modes are NORMAL MOVE, ADVANCE, REMAIN STATIONARY, and FALL BACK.  Note that it appears you can no longer keep some models stationary while others move, if one model moves, the whole unit counts as having moved.  Advance rolls only apply for that phase, so you will have to roll again if you have an ability that lets you move again, and it seems like reinforcements can come in any turn.  Of course this is the basic rules, so there might be a match play rule in the actual rule book.

Transports have gotten a bit of an overhaul as well.  While you can EMBARK on a transport if your unit is WITHIN 3", when you DISEMBARK your unit must be WHOLLY WITHIN 3".  Also, you can't EMBARK if the transport is WITHIN ENGAGEMENT RANGE.  How do you like the use of all those important keywords?  I like it.

The shooting phase has a couple big changes in it as well in that Monsters and Vehicles can shoot while in combat.  They can only make attacks against an enemy unit within ENGAGEMENT RANGE but they can declare targets that are outside ENGAGEMENT RANGE.  This only really comes into play if you can manage to kill the unit within ENGAGEMENT RANGE before resolving the other attacks, or if a weapon has an affect that only requires being able to target something.  This is a huge boost for shooting armies and a huge detriment to assault armies.

LOOK OUT SIR has an neat addendum added to it as well, a character has to be within 3" of a vehicle, monster, or unit with 3+ models as well as not be the closest to be ineligible to target.  So if your character spaces out more than 6" from any other units in order to maximize his aura abilities, he can get picked off even if he isn't the closest model.  You also still ignore other characters with 9 or less wounds for determining if another unit is closer.

BLAST is a new weapon ability that shows up on some weapons that have a random number of shots.  When targeting units that have more than 5 models you can't score less that 3 shots when rolling for the number of shots.  If you roll less than 3 it just counts as 3.  When targeting a unit that has more than 10 models then you automatically make the maximum number of shots.  Now the examples they give are grenades, and there are a couple armies out there that have stratagems that let them throw multiple grenades, can you imagine a buffed up Blight Bombardment getting max hits for each grenade?  Mother fucking OUCH!

There are a couple of real big changes to making attacks, first of which is the blanket statement that unmodified hit, wound, and save rolls of 1 always fail and unmodified hit and wound rolls of 6 always succeed.  On top of that hit and wound rolls CANNOT be modified above +1 or below -1.

I like some of these changes, it brings some of the top units down and some of the bottom units up.

There is one significant change in charging and that is that you have to make it into ENGAGEMENT RANGE against every unit you declared a charge against or else the charge fails.  This makes it increasingly difficult to pull off charges against multiple enemy units while still trying to maintain COHERENCY.

It becomes even more difficult to kill things in combat now the "support" range is cut down to 1/2", and models can only support another model if it's 1/2" from an enemy model.  So you can be in ENGAGEMENT RANGE but more than 1/2" away and other models that are beside it won't be able to attack since the first model isn't within 1/2".  This is probably the most convoluted and asinine rule in this edition.

MORALE TESTS got an overhaul as well.  While the basic test works the same, if D6 + models destroyed is higher than your Ld then you fail, the result is drastically different.  If you fail, you lose one additional model, then you make a COMBAT ATTRITION TEST whereby you roll a number of D6's equal to the number of models left in the unit and on a roll of 1 an additional model flees.  If the unit is below half strength when the test is made then the COMBAT ATTRITION TEST fails on a 1 or 2.

So far things are not looking good for horde or assault based armies.  Blast weapons are looking to do a ton more damage against hordes and the new COMBAT ATTRITION TEST along with UNIT COHERENCY CHECKS are going to bring the end of high model count units.  While UNIT COHERENCY, multi-charge requirements, and the 1/2" requirement for "support" attacks are going to make combat far less effective.  Of course it's hard to tell really without the full book, who knows what terrain rules and stratagems will be available?  Well, we know some of them, perhaps I'll dig some of those up for my next post.

Man it feels good to be back in the saddle.  Thanks for reading and, as always, feel free to leave a comment.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.