Leviathan Unleashed: A Full 10th Edition Battle Report

It's here!  As promised, GW dropped a full battle report for Warhammer 10th Edition!  Now this is only going to be a Combat Patrol, so not everything will be applicable to the full game.  But we'll finally get to see how everything comes together on the table.

Let's also see if GW's battle report presentation has improved.

We get our first official look at a mission with Clash of Patrols.  Looks like Combat Patrol will continue to use the 44"X30" board.  

We also get to see an addition mission rule that lets players get additional CP during the game.  This doesn't appear to be an action, you just get the CP as long as you both control and objective and still have your Warlord.

We get a full look at the Combat Patrol, though I don't see any attached Ripper Swarms.  We already knew what these Combat Patrols were, but it's nice to get a new shot of each one.

They explain you'll get two enhancements and two secondaries to choose from.  

We've seen the enhancements but the secondaries are new.  Unfortunately, they don't show us both, just the one chosen by the player.  This Tyranid secondary rewards you for getting your Prime stuck in.

We then get the same treatment for the Space Marines.  This is a much smaller detachment, emphasizing just how elite those Terminators are.

We now get to see the selections for the Space Marine enhancements . . .

. . . and they're secondary.  It's almost identical to the Tyranid one, but produces fewer VP to represent how much tougher this Captain probably is.  Also, can I say that even a Heavy Metal paintjob isn't meant to be this zoomed in.  Though it does make some of those extreme details look almost more impressive.

Then it looks like we get the full text, or close to it, for the Leader ability.  It still doesn't spell out how Keywords work.  However, the whole unit becomes one Unit called an Attached unit.  It says this is for all rules purposes, so my guess is that means the unit shares the keywords of all models inside of it.

Attacker and Defender return, with the winner of the role off choosing which role they'll play.  For this game, the Defender deploys first and then they alternate.

We finally get Infiltrators.  The rule works as we expected it would, allowing you to deploy the unit anywhere on the battlefield outside of 9" of your opponents deployment zone and their models.  Infiltrators will probably be as important in 10th as they were in 9th, making sure you can establish early board control and block your opponents own Infiltrators and Deep Strike units.

Attacker and Defender don't appear to matter for who goes first, or anything else that happens during deployment.  It looks like it's just a straight roll off.

We then get a look at the Stratagem page.  No real rules or details here, though Simon does mention he gains a CP in his command phase.  The counter for Ben goes up too, showing that both players still gain CP.  Nothing new there though.

We then get to see the nerfed version of Oath of Moment that Combat Patrol uses.  It's still a flat reroll to hit, so it's definitely good.

Finally!  There's the confirmation that Stealth is -1 to hit.  Also, no datasheet yet, but Ben gives us that Von Ryan's are T5 with a 4+ Sv.  The Librarian then fires off his Psychic power, revealing that you do still get to shoot with all your guns.

We then get our full text for HAZARDOUS.  I'd already had this spoiled a bit, I knew it would be hard to avoid spoilers, though I'd found the description odd.  Now it makes senses though.  Instead of every 1 to hit killing your models, you now wait until after you've fired and roll a single dice for each HAZARDOUS weapon.  If the wielder isn't a Character, Monster, or Vehicle, you have to remove a model with that weapon.  If it's a Character, Monster, or Vehicle, they take 3 mortals.  That's a lot of mortals, especially with the new lower Wounds profiles.  The rule specifies your Character takes the mortals too, even if they've got a bodyguard.  Since I'm willing to bet Mortals spill over, this does mean a Psyker can still blow themselves up, taking other models with them.

All and all, though, this is far less punishing than previous Plasma rules or Perils of the Warp.  I think we'll be seeing plenty of players pushing their luck to get the most out of their weapons.

And there's Fights First.  It's . . . well it's Fights First.  It's interesting this now gets it's own step.

What has changed is who get's to pick the first unit on Fights First.  Before, the active player got first pick of Fights First units, then the inactive player got to choose the first Fights Normal.  Now it looks like it's always the inactive player that gets to pick.

We then get one of the Tyranid's Combat Patrol Stratagems.  A generic -1 to Hit is always useful.

After breezing through the Command Phase with only the barest mention of Battle-shock, we get Fire Overwatch.  It can be used in both the Movement and Charge phase now.  It still requires 6s to hit, but TORRENT bypasses it, making flamers even more useful for denying ground as in 8th and 9th.

After watching Simon burn Ben's Termagants off the board, and the use of Teeming Broods as was previously revealed in Combat Patrol, Simon uses Gene-Wrought Resilience.  This reminds me of Transhuman, but it scales much more reasonably.

Also, can I say, watching them squeal their way through this fight phase is much more enjoyable than other Battle Reports Warhammer Plus has done.  I might check out some of the more recent ones.  I'd previously found their presentation quite bland.  But they're doing a pretty good job of keeping me excited and interested.

And here's the full rules for the Battle-shock step that Ben breezed through before.  And there is something I was looking for!  Your unit does use the best Leadership it has.  So if you've joined Greyfax to a unit, you get to test on Leadership 4+!

The other thing I was looking for is that Battle-shock lasts until your next Command phase.  I was curious if you could roll to recover in each Command phase or if it was a flat duration.  Now this doesn't mean there aren't any Stratagems that will let you recover from Battle-shock, but we now know it's a fixed duration.  This means if you get Battle-shocked in your turn, say from Shadow in the Warp, you stay Battle-shocked until your next turn.

I'm also noting that the third bullet point says, "Its controlling player cannot use Stratagems to affect that unit."  So it's not just targeting the unit, no Stratagem you use can affect it at all!  I'm continuing to feel that Battle-shock will be an important mechanic in 10th Edition.

And there's a sticky objective Stratagem for Combat Patrol.

Huh!  I thought Termagants weren't getting Skulking Horrors in Combat Patrol.  Looks like the datasheet has been changed since it was revealed at Adepticon.  This is hopefully showing that GW is going to be taking full advantage of these digital datasheets to constantly adjust and balance them.

We then get to see some split fire, confirming that you can choose different targets for different weapons.

And there's another ability on the Captain.

And we get the full text for Feel No Pain, revealing it as an ability for the Psychophage.  Oh wow!  FNP now effects Mortal Wounds!  So from previous reveals it looks like you can have FNP against just Mortal Wounds, or full Feel No Pain.

And here's an ability for the Psychophage.

And a weapon!  Now we don't know if they'll be any changes to the full Datasheet, but in Combat Patrol they look like they're both excellent Anti-Psyker and really good against wounded units.

Oh!  And here's another weapon reveal!  Hah!

We get combat with the Prime, but they don't give us a full weapon reveal.  Instead, we get the fact their talons are S6 and AP-1.

A lot of this Battle Report has focused on the Psychophage, and they use it to reveal another Tyranid Stratagem with reroll to Hit.

And they also reveal a Space Marine Stratagem.  This is one has a nice, reroll Wounds of 1 with full rerolls for Monsters and Vehicles.

I'll have to double check, but I think this might be a better version of Fury of the First.  Nope, it's the same.  They also mention that the Psychophage is T9.

Just give us the Datasheet!

Well, we get Deadly Demise.  No real surprises here.  It's nice you roll it for Transports before you disembark the models, so they don't have to face a double jeopardy for their Transport blowing up.

We also get the full rules for Objective Control.  No surprises here, though we do get the strange reveal that you can't actually stand on the objective itself.  I guess GW wanted to make it easier to use custom objective markers, especially the ones they sell.

They tease the Prime's stats some more.  This is another one I wish they'd give us more of a peek at.

We then get Insane Bravery!  This is a step up from the old Strat, allowing you to immediately pass a failed Battle-shock test.  You would think with the rules for Battle-shock they would have had you use it in advance, but they specifically allowed an exception so this Stratagem would be more reactive.

With the battle wrapping up, we get a look at a special rule for Battleline units in Combat Patrol.  In remembrance of the old Obsec rule, they get sticky objectives instead.  This is important, since these smaller armies will have a greater difficulty with board control.

The final result reveals a couple more things for the game.  The first is that, as in 9th, all that matters if VP.  Even though Simon tabled Ben in the last turn, Ben still wins the game because of better scoring.  I honestly love this rule, as 40K is filled with stories of heroes sacrificing themselves to accomplish critical missions.  I'm glad to see it's still around.

I'm less glad to see that the silly 10 points for having a "Battle Ready" army is still here.  I honestly think this is a stupid rule.  Good players aren't going to hold unfinished models over there friends' heads, and tournaments already require painted miniatures.  The only people who will insist on their 10 points are probably the players you don't want to play with.

FINAL THOUGHTS

With that, I popped over to Warhammer Community to see if we get anything else.  Other than spotlighting the original plastic giant kit for 40 Years of Warhammer, we don't have anything new from this Battle Report.

On the whole, it's nice to see so many things spelled out for us.  While I really wish they would have released the datasheets for the models along with the Battle Report, I'm pretty sure it won't be long until we'll have more to enjoy.

And speaking of enjoyment, I want to reiterate this was a much better Battle Report presentation than the earlier ones on Warhammer Plus.  I don't know what GW's plans are for the ailing service.  But unlike Citadel Masterclass, where they kept changing it for the worse, it looks like they're at least making some good changes.  Not only were the shots extremely clean and crisp, but the presenters looked like they were genuinely having fun and I had fun with them.

Silent Hill: Ascension

Last year, a company known for making pachinko machines discovered they actually own some of the most popular and storied IPs in all of video games!  By now, you almost certainly know that Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is getting a remake, and it's been confirmed that Konami will be doing it in house.  But last year, Konami did a showcase for one of my favorite video game series, Silent Hill.

The showcase featured multiple Silent Hill projects in the works, only one of which got me genuinely excited while the rest left me mostly feeling worry and concern.  Honestly, although not all of the later Silent Hill games were bad, the series tanked considerably after Konami broke up the team that created the first three games.  That's why many fans have been excited that many of those projects are being farmed out to other studios where new creatives might be able to do original things.

Among those was a complete unknown called Silent Hill: Ascension.  The project was an almost complete mystery, with many of the details provided raising more questions than answers.

Now it looks like Ascension is going to jump on the hype started from MGS, and is kicking off a new press campaign.  I received an email newsletter last night before I went to bed.  Let's see what the email and the website have unveiled.

THE NEWSLETTER

The text of the newsletter is mostly focused on the idea that we'll get to have a direct impact on the Silent Hill cannon.  The story apparently is focused on multiple characters around the world.  It seems the evil of Samael, or perhaps something even darker behind the demon, is affecting more than just a sleepy town in West Virginia.  Perhaps this will explain how Silent Hill F is taking place in Japan.

The big thrust is once again that we will have control over the outcome of the story.  But how we get that control, and how the entire fandom as a whole will decide, is still unanswered.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this premise too.  The thing that made Silent Hill cool as a series was that it didn't revolve around characters, or even a continuing plotline, but that it revolved around a setting.  The town of Silent Hill was a character in it's own right, and the most important aspect of the game.  Konami and the studios it has hired/licensed will have to tread carefully if they're going in this direction.  They'll need to make sure that each new "Silent Hill" has its own identity while still making it feel connected to the original setting.  If they just go "Every town has an Elm Street!" and literally just reuse the same setting and premise throughout the new franchise, it will probably kill enthusiasm for it.

I'm still excited for Silent Hill F though.

THE WEBSITE

Okay, this imagery is creepy, if a little generic, though it's ruined by having it looped.  They should have had it fade to a static piece of artwork.

Looks like the main piece of content is the trailer.  Let's see what we've got.

These candles remind me of the opening of Diablo III.

The voice over calls back to the concept of guilt.  It looks like they're going to be focusing in on guilt as one of the main themes of Silent Hill.  This is definitely appropriate, though it's not the only negative emotion the setting seems to feed on.

In addition to mister barbed wire, we get some teasers of some monsters.  One definitely has that corrupted, Silent Hill vibe.

I'm not sure about this one though.  This feels a bit more like something I'd see in a Soulsborn.

This is really on theme though.

We then get some action scenes with more monsters though.  I'm not sure I like the character work.  All of them seem to have that generic, Poser/Daz3D feel to them.  Some of the monsters and animations look good, other not so much.

DETAILS REVEALED

The article begins with the same text of the newsletter, so nothing new there.

We then get a quote from Chris Amaral, Art Director at Bad Robot games.  "The detailed environments, the eerie ambiance, and the realistic characters and monsters . . ."  Honestly Chris, that trailer was a pretty mixed bag.  I'm not sure you've quite achieved what you set out to do, and this is supposed to be out this year.

The quote then goes on to again emphasize that the global community will get to shape the narrative and the future of the franchise.  But how!  How will we get to do this?  Will this be like the Dark Pictures franchise where we'll get a game we get to play and our collective decisions will determine the cannon outcomes?  Or will this be, a frankly bland series of CGs with some type of American Idol voting?

What actually is this thing?

FINAL THOUGHTS

The mysteries surrounding this project are not getting me excited for it and that trailer isn't helping.  The fact I still don't know what this actually is, let alone how bland so much of that trailer was, is not getting me hyped for this.  If this is coming out this year, we should at least know what kind of game/project it is.

Konami seems to have forgotten they fired the man who was the master of this kind of mystery marketing.

I remain concerned for the future of Silent Hill.

Faction Focus: Imperial Agents

Warhammer 40,000 Faction Focus: Imperial Agents

I'm fighting off something, but it's a big day and I got a surprise in my email yesterday that I might cover too.  So let's get started!

Imperial Agents are a bit of an odd duck.  They're not really a faction, in the lore or in the game.  Instead they represent the many unique offices of the Imperium that might take an interest in a battle.  That hasn't stopped players from wanting to play them as an army though, especially since back in 2nd they were an army.  Since then, though, two of the forces in the codexes were split off into their own factions.  But that hasn't stopped players from wanting to run the elite forces of an Inquisitor, an alliance of Rogue Traders, or a disparate force made of allies of convenience.  Unfortunately, 9th made it difficult to put such a force on the battlefield.  Even with the new Kill Team boxes adding in forces of the Imperial Navy and the Adeptus Arbites, these armies have largely been relegated to Narrative or Open Play.

Will 10th change this?  Let's find out!

FACTION RULES

And with our preamble out of the way, GW cuts straight to the point.  No, Imperial Agents are not designed to be fielded as a combined force in 10th Edition.  They do not get Detachment rules, Stratagems, or Enhancements in the Index.  Whether they might change this later, time will tell.  But for now, these are units designed to slot into your existing army.

Right off the bat, Agents can not be used in a Combat Patrol.  This makes perfect sense, since Combat Patrol is now specific armies fighting each other instead of one you build.  Next, agents are now split into Characters and Retinues.  This also makes a lot of sense since most Agents would come with their own hand pick unit of allies, and with the new Leader rule you'd want them together.  You get 1 of each based on the game size, so 1 Character and 1 Retinue for Incursion, 2 Characters and 2 Retinues for Strike Force, etc.  Finally, you can't have an Assassin as your Warlord.  This does mean that since including Agents occurs after your Select Army Faction step, you can pick an Agent to be your Warlord.  So in this way at least, you can still field the forces of an Inquisitor or Rogue Trader, they'll just use the rules of another faction.

VINDICARE ASSASSIN

We get my favorite assassin for the first Unit Spotlight.  Statline wise, the Vindicare has lost a wound like many characters.  This is something I keep forgetting to notice or mention, but it is a definitive trend that has crossed all factions with a Character in the Faction Focus.  The pistol has gone up a point of Strength and gone to a flat damage 3, while losing the normal pip of AP.  That's overall a buff for 10th Edition, though if there were weapons that shouldn't lose AP I'd say these would be them.  What isn't a buff are the changes to the special rules.  It's no longer ANTI-INFANTRY 2+, and since they've gotten rid of ignoring invulns, that's gone too.  Instead, it's gotten DEVASTATING WOUNDS and IGNORES COVER.  This will still be a potent weapon, but nowhere near as reliable.

It's a similar story for the rifle, though this time it's a pure buff on the statline as this weapon didn't lose AP.  Looks like GW agreed with me that the Vindicare's Exitus rifle should have a high AP even in 10th.  Again, they've traded DEVASTATING WOUNDS for ignores invulns and IGNORES COVER for ANTI-INFANTRY 2+.  But the weapon has also remained HEAVY, which is now a pure buff.  This means if you're Vindicare can Remain Stationary, it can offset most penalties to Hit.

As expected, the Vindicare, and I'm guessing all assassins, are Lone Operative.  This means you can't shoot them unless you're within 12" or, maybe, with PRECISION.  You can feel free to perch them atop a ruin to get the most benefit from their range and HEAVY rule, as well as Plunging Fire, without your opponent being able to pick them off.

As if the boost to damage wasn't enough, especially with Characters going down in wounds, you get another 3 Damage on a critical hit.  This means there is a very real possibility this Assassin can just headshot a character off the board.

And there it is!  There's the ignore invuln!  The Shieldbreaker rule lets the assassin fire a single shot in a battle that ignores all saving throws.  That's our bar for ignoring an invuln: a once per battle ability on the Vindicare Assassin.  You must be that swol to ride the pain train!

INQUISITOR

While we don't get Dan Abnett's Gregor Eisenhorn or even Katarinya Greyfax from the Fall of Cadia, we do still get our baseline Inquistor for the second reveal.  Again, there are no surprises in the statline, just a single lost wound.  They can now wield a combi-weapon with it's new and improved abilities.  They also get a single PSYCHIC attack in the form of Psychic Shock Wave.  It's stats are underwhelming but it does come with DEVASTATING WOUNDS, so on average you'll plink at least one point of damage through.  It's melee choices have seen the usual consolidation with a single Inquisitorial melee weapon and a force weapon.  The force weapon looks like it's based off the force sword profile.  Sorry, no more big hammer blows for Inquisitors.  And the melee weapon appears to be a power sword.

It keeps the special rule that allows it to override the unit restrictions of a transport.  This makes more sense than including the Inquisitor on any potential transport amongst all the Imperium factions.  It then additionally gets the standard CP refund rule for units its leading, though it goes off on a 3+.  The real kicker here, though, is it can grant a unit a 5+ FNP.

Honestly this is underwhelming.  The main reason you brought an Inquisitor before was for access to their special Psychic powers.  Now you'll be weighing them up against other leaders for units.  Most factions will have access to that CP refund and that FNP.  But it's possible there might not be as many that can grant both with one character.  We'll have to see if people find uses for them in 10th.

IMPERIAL NAVY BREACHERS

Oh!  But what is this?  We get another reveal!  I guess with no real faction rule they thought fans of Imperial Agents needed a bit more.  Navy Breachers were underwhelming on release and never really got any kind of buff.  Let's see if they get any interesting rules now.

Their statline is unchanged, which means they come with a Termagant's 8+ Ld.  Ouch!  Aren't these supposed to be hardened warriors of the Imperial Navy that brave the deadly role of both breaching an enemy vessel as well as defending from breachers?  You'd think that soldiers that have seen the horrors of void warfare would be a bit more fearless!

They otherwise get a large, but bland, selection of weapons.  It's very clear that this datasheet is designed to let you take your Kill Team and have them be roughly as effective on the board regardless of how you've put them together.

In exchange, they get Veterans.  However unlike the previous versions we've seen, they get the re-roll for all of their attacks!  This is a nice buff.  My big concern is that they're rarely going to get to use that OC 2 since they'll be constantly Battle-shocked.  Still, they might be able to help secure an objective.  They get access to both Smoke and an enhanced Grenade Stratagem, but this has the same concern since you can't target a Battle-shocked unit with a Stratagem.

I know they were Ld 6 in 9th, but I just don't understand why they weren't bumped to Ld 7+ in 10th.

INQUISITOR KATARINYA GREYFAX

Well it seems I spoke too soon!  But then I wasn't expecting to see four reveals today.  Do I hear a fifth?  There's still some scroll bar and I know we're not getting a Stratagem!

Greyfax has also lost a wound, so that trend continues.  However, she's Ld 4+!  For reference, Guilliman is 5+!  That means she only has a 1 in 12 chance, only a little more than 8%, to fail Leadership normally.  If she can give her Leadership to units, she could be really valuable.  She gets Castigation as her main witchfire, hitting at S8, AP-2, and D3 with ANIT-CHARACTER 4+, DEVASTATING WOUNDS, and PRECISION.  She'll be able to do some nice damage to priority targets with this.  And while the Condemnor has a bland profile, it gets ANIT-PSYCHER 2+, DEVASTATING WOUNDS, PRECISION, and RAPID FIRE 1.  I'd say that's an overall buff for the Pychic power though maybe a nerf to the gun.  Honestly Condemnor is probably a side-grade, gaining more general purpose use for less potent anti-Pycher.

She keeps the Transport rules from the generic Inquisitor profile but also gets the ability to share her ANTI-PSYCHER abilities with her Bodyguards at 4+.  And though I have no idea how important Desperate Escape will be in the new edition, the fact that she forces enemies in melee to test it if they want to Fall Back, at -1 if they're Battle-shocked, is probably pretty good.  There are lots of enemies that you want to keep pinned in melee, and anything that helps you do that is a good thing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The article closes noting that you can field an army of Agents of the Imperium.  They all have the Faction Keyword, so you can select that as your Faction and follow the rules as normal.  But you won't gain any other benefits for doing so.

At the end of the day, Agents of the Imperium allows you to sprinkle in cool units into your existing Imperium armies and allows Kill Team players ways to use their units in 40K.  While bespoke rules for an Inquisitor's retinue would be cool, it's honestly easiest to just use whatever existing faction fits the scenario best.  Maybe as 10th Edition continues, as well as another season of Kill Team, we'll see more rules to let you do interesting things with these units.

Of what we saw in this faction focus, my guess is that Assassins are still going to be the main thing you use from this Index.  The Inquistor might be worth taking if your budget is tight and you need those two specific buffs in your army.  Breachers feel a bit sad to me, and I'm worried their Leadership will prevent them from finding a home in any list.  Depending on what she costs, though, Greyfax could find a home in a few armies.

All we have left are divergent Space Marine Chapters and Titans.  And since next week is the first full week of June, I'm guessing the reveals are going to be coming fast at this point.  It won't be long until we get to see these full indexes and their points, as well as an official release of the full rules.  Then the real fun, the army building and theory crafting, can begin!

Eh?  Playing 40K?  Yeah, I guess that's fun too.

Faction Focus: Genestealer Cults

We finally get to my sub faction, the Genestealer Cults.

As a faction, GSC is a hard army to write rules for.  They're a force that consists mostly of not just base-line humans, but untrained base-line humans.  The bulk of the "army" are the weak and down trodden of the Imperium, drawn to the siren song of justice, change, and salvation by the cult's psychicly laced words.  Their statlines have usually reflected this, with datasheets seemingly not worth any points investment.  Instead, they are an army that thrives on stealth, infiltration, and espionage, as well as the arrogance, corruption, and incompetence of their enemies.  The rules need to reflect this.

The 9th Edition GSC Codex is widely considered to be the best book of the edition, if not all of 40K.  The mechanics so perfectly displayed the faction and how it fights in the lore while remaining balanced.  For nearly all of its tenure in 9th, it was a middle of the road faction that only overperformed in the hands of its most stalwart fans.  But it also showed how precarious such balance can be, as only a slight buff turned GSC into a terror on the top tables.

Let's see if GW can bottle lightning twice.

CULT AMBUSH

The article starts by detailing that every GSC Infantry unit will have access to Deep Strike, likely replacing the old blip mechanic that GSC used in 8th and 9th.

Well . . . it looks like not replacing.  Blips are indeed back, but they work way differently and look like they might be crazy powerful.  Now, rather than starting with blips on the battlefield, you roll a dice when one of your units is destroyed, adding 3 if it was Battleline.  On a 4+ you place a blip using Deep Strike rules and place the destroyed unit in Cult Ambush at full strength.  The marker is lost if there's no legal place for it.  Then at the end of your opponents movement phase you get to Deep Strike the unit.

This is a potentially powerful rule that will take a lot of skill to use properly.  On the one hand, you get your full unit back.  On the other, you place the blip marker when it was destroyed.  Depending on when this is, your opponent will get to respond.  I can easily see a scenario where the opponent guns one squad off the table in the Shooting Phase, you place the blip, then they charge within 9", and you have to remove it.  But then you Deep Strike those units at the end of your opponent's movement phase, so they'll get a chance to respond to them before you can do anything.  I'm betting GSC will get some stratagems or rules for returning units with better timing though.

So it looks like GSC will continue to be a high skill ceiling, high skill floor army that will reward the players who are willing to put the time in to learn the faction.

THEY CAME FROM BELOW

This, on the other hand, is simple and powerful.  You Deep Strike a unit, they get SUSTAINED HITS 1 and IGNORES COVER.  Hard to argue with that!  Although it doesn't explicitly say in the text, Cult Ambush counts as Reinforcements according to the article.  This makes sense, since it occurs in the Reinforcements step.  So you're opponent will be destroying units only to potentially see them come back with a vengeance.

BROOD BROTHERS

They return!  And it's just a nice and simple faction rule.  You basically get a quarter of your force to dedicate to Brood Brothers.  They don't get any special rules or anything, but they're also much simpler to include.  Unlike before, where the unit had to have a specific keyword, now you're just excluded from taking specific keywords.

And of course I had to check: none of those keywords appear on the Baneblade!

NEOPHYTE HYBRIDS

The Neophyte profile is exactly as expected, no surprises there.  Weapons also seem mostly unchanged, though krak grenades and the mining laser have been given a boost.  I'm also noting the squad leader gets a stronger pistol.

A Plan Generations in the Making is the standard CP generation rule we've seen before.  But the real kicker here is that the Cult Icon now lets you return 3 destroyed models, D3+3 on an objective.  This is a unit you'll want to aim to keep on objectives as much as possible.

We also get a reveal that the Goliath Truck will have Firing Deck 12, allowing 12 neophytes to shoot out of it.

THE PATRIARCH

For our second reveal, our alien overlord makes his appearance.  The model itself is mostly unchanged, though its claws have gained some some strength in exchange for that standard pip of AP.

But of course, 10th is all about the special rules.  Might From Beyond gives the Patriarch's unit his DEVASTATING WOUNDS rule.  My guess is you'll usually be using this with Genestealers, whose weapons lack any special rules now.  Cosmic Horror brings in the new Tyranid penchant for Battle-shock.  Then, finally, the Familiar returns with an ability to double the range on Cosmic Horror.

Swift and Deadly will definitely be missed (at least on the profile as I'm betting there will be a Stratagem) but for a model leading some Genestealers this could be potent.

WEAPON SPOTLIGHT

We next get a peak at our returning 9th Edition character, the Reductus Saboteur.  Demo charges are much more simple now, dealing a one shot blast at a standard new 10th edition profile, though it's gained 3 shots.  Remotes look like they're nerfed, but what actually seems to have happened is that they're now the old blasting charge profile but with INDIRECT FIRE.  Kinda disappointing as the Saboteur no longer has a fluffy anti-vehicle attack.

Next we get the Abominant, and the power sledge has taken a bit of a nerf.  The formerly S10 weapon would be S14-16 in the new Edition, and it's lost 2 points of damage in addition to the standard AP nerf.

For now, the Beach appears to still be closed.

STRATAGEM SPOTLIGHT

While Crossfire is gone, it looks like we'll be getting some Stratagems like this to allow us to gain a similar benefit.  For 2CP, Coordinated Trap allows two units to gang up with a +1 to Wound on a target.  One complaint GSC players had with Crossfire is that it only benefited shooting.  But GSC feels like a melee army.  This Stratagem can be used for either.  So you can use it if you want to lay careful ambushes from cover, or get in close to tear down your oppressors.

And if you're worried about being able to use those blip tokens with your opponent getting plenty of time to respond, you've got Tunnel Crawlers.  This allows you to Deep Strike in as long as you're outside 3".  Now, even if your opponent is crowding in close to your blip tokens, you can still get your unit into position.  Then you'll be able to avenge your fallen comrades at close range!

FINAL THOUGHTS

We get a couple more reveals snuck in at the end for this Faction Focus, with the Locus giving led units Fight First and the Biophagus granting LETHAL HITS.  GSC are definitely going to get to take advantage of the new Leader rules.

GSC is not an easy army to play, and that's not changing in 10th.  As I said at the top, they're datasheets are suitably underwhelming.  And that's how I feel about the reveals we've seen for units and wargear.  But those Faction Rules and Stratagems are where the real power lies.  If you can perfect these challenging but powerful rules, I can see GSC having some real potential.

Faction Focus: Drukhari

Warhammer 40,000 Faction Focus: Drukhari

I was wondering when Aeldari was announced as a pure faction for 10th Edition what the fate of their dark cousins would be.  At this point Harlequins definitely seem to still be a part of the Aeldari faction, though we still don't know the rules for how they'll be played in 10th.  But, for now at least, it seems the Lords of Comorragh will remain an independent faction with their own rules.

Let's see what horrors they have in store for us . . .

POWER FROM PAIN

The intro discusses how the three aspects of Drukhari work together to accomplish their goals, so it looks like we probably won't be seeing separate rules for Kabals, Cults, and Covens yet, if they keep them at all.

For now, Power From Pain returns, a mechanic 9th Edition Drukhari shared with their AoS sisters.  But now, instead of being a cumulative buff over the course of the battle, it's a token based mechanic.  You gain Pain at the start of Battle, each time you destroy a unit, and each time you inflict Battle-shock.  In a standard Strike Force game you'll be starting with three.

You know, with both Daemons and World Eaters losing their points mechanics, and Votann being simplified, it seemed like 10th was moving away from this kind of book keeping.  Now they're introducing it where I feel the system was much more simple before.  Honestly finding this a little bit strange.

And this is a much more restrictive and less powerful set of buffs for it too.  Admittedly, re-rolling Charges is always useful, but this faction used to have army wide Advance and Charge.  The flat re-roll hits is pretty nice though, especially when their more disciplined cousins just get to re-roll one dice.

REALSPACE RAIDERS

So our first detachment for 10th Edition is the Realspace Raid, implying we could see more dedicated detachments in the future.  I do hope they keep that in some form when the Codex comes out.  This is a very simple mechanic too, you get another Pain token if you have at least one of a sub-faction's leaders, to a maximum of 3.  This can double your starting Pain total.  Being able to front load an army's power is always useful.  Looks like Drukhari will have some serious alpha strike potential.

THE VENOM

Venoms have been potent in many editions of the game.  I seem to recall they were particularly nasty in 8th Edition.  We're getting the full rules for them here, so we can get a better idea for how good they'll be in 10th.

It's interesting the model itself gives you the ability to Combat Squad your units.  If you have one, you can take one squad of Wyches or Warriors and split them.  One part of the unit will be embarked on the Venom, the other can either be deployed or embarked on another vehicle.  I'm noting the rule reads, "Before the battle, at the start of the Declare Battle Formations step, you can select one Kabalite Warriors or Wyches unit from your army."  It's my understanding that rules like this don't stack.  So this means you can split one unit if you bring a Venom, not one unit for each Venom.  I'm curious to see how this actually works out when I have my hands on the full rules.

Oh wow!  It comes with Stealth.  We still don't know for sure what that does, but if it's a -1 to Hit at ranged that will still be quite powerful.  The embarked models also get to fire, which is definitely a plus.

Like many models in 10th Edition, it's a little bit tougher but also a little slower.  The Invuln has gone down a pip but now works against melee.  The Bladevanes are also staying at WS 4+.  It also looks like Splinter weapons are getting a slight boost, wounding Infantry on 3s now instead of 4s.  Other than that a lot of this is what we've come to expect.  The splinter rifles are losing a shot of Rapid Fire but gaining TWIN-LINKED.  Interestingly, not only is the splinter cannon gaining SUSTAINED HITS 1, but the AP hasn't gone down.

What's really cool here is you can Embark units in the Fight phase.  This means you can embark them in your opponents turn and reposition them on your turn.  If there's a Stratagem to allow them to charge, this could be brutal.

KABALITE WARRIORS

The article immediately calls out that Kabalite Warriors have sticky objectives.  They get the added bonus that you can control the marker either with them, or with a Transport they're on.  Looks like they want to keep Drukhari as fast and agile as they can.  This makes sense as they've always been a glass cannon army.

Kabalites are actually faster in this edition too!  Other than that their stats seem very much the same.  Their weapons seem mostly unchanged, save the standard AP reduction.  The big loss here is that the Sybarite is substantially nerfed.  My guess is that they probably felt it didn't need its current damage abilities with the new Leader rules.

Huh!  And I just noticed they have Aeldari as a keyword.  So while the Aeldari units we've seen don't have any keywords denoting them as anything but Aeldari, Drukhari are still both Drukhari and Aeldari.  I'm guessing Harlequins and maybe Ynnari will have their Keywords too.

WEAPON SPOTLIGHT

We get to see the Talos's haywire blaster.  It's lost a shot to gain TWIN-LINKED, but that's almost certainly a buff.  The re-roll will be very appreciated when fishing for 4s.  Like similar weapons, it's gained DEVASTATING WOUNDS now but lost the extra mortals.  In exchange it's now flat 3 damage.  Its AP has gone down, but that doesn't really matter since you'll be ignoring saves for Vehicles anyway.

We then get a peak at Lelith herself!  She's gained an attack but lost a point of Strength.  In exchange her weapons are now ANTI-INFANTRY and have gone up to SUSTAINED HITS 2!  She will shred most light or medium infantry now and any such characters will need to watch out.

ALLIANCE OF AGONY

The stratagem reveal doubles down on the Detachment Rule.  They really want you to take one of each faction leader for this army.  This is the first Stratagem I'm kind of cold on.  You're basically trading 1 CP for 2 Pain Tokens.  Of the two resources, I feel CP is going to be far more scarce.  Still, if the game isn't going well this might give you a way to catch up.

FINAL THOUGHTS

They finally end with a little tease of Advance and Charge returning for Wyches, if only as a Stratagem.  I think they might need it too.

Drukhari entered 9th Edition with all the devastation and terror befitting their faction.  Between them and AdMech, they devastated formats for nearly a year.  This Drukhari force feels like it might be paying a bit for those sins.  The new army rule will require much more skill to use.  This is honestly better than an army rule that doesn't require much skill at all, but the army as a whole can already require some effort to pilot.  However a lot of that power does seem to have gone back onto the units, which seem to allow for a agile and hard hitting play style. 

Like so much of this edition, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

A Holiday in the Galactic West and Previews

Feeling Rough? Take a Holiday Under the Sunlit Skies of the Galactic West!

I don't know who came up with doing add spots like this, but they're brilliant.  I wish I had been doing this Live Blog when April Fools came around and they introduced the first Warhammer themed exercise equipment.  Honestly kinda sad they didn't actually sell that.

For those of you who don't know, in the new setting for 10th Edition, "The Galactic West" is currently the sight of Leviathan's new invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy.  So let's check out this "travel add!"

Love the cheesy 80s Holiday add music!

Oh!  We have the name of the world for the recent trailer and upcoming book.  I honestly can't remember if GW has mentioned this anywhere before.  Welcome to Oghram, everyone!  You're just in time for dinner!

Oh!  Don't think I've seen this clip of what I'm guessing are Tyranid reclamation pools.  Might need to go watch the intro cinematic again and see if I can spot them.

And we end with some Tyranid action spots for our "safari," making this all and all a pretty 'Nid focused add spot.

This was a nice fun piece of content for us to enjoy.  Of course the primary goal is to make sure we're not losing hype over the weekend between daily reveals.  But it's still fun, and may have even given us a longer look at something the trailer only hinted at.

Sunday Previews - Start New Adventure's into the Underworlds

Though the title of our Preview is for Warhammer: Underworlds, the image has a Deathguard for half of it.  Let's see if we've got any mini or content previews today.

Looks like we're getting another wave of Space Marine Heroes with Death Guard again.  Don't know if this is the exact same set as before, though they do confirm the Plaguecaster is the same.  But that set was previously only sold in Japan.

If you don't know how these work, these are random Gacha packs.  Individually, the prices are less than what GW usually charges for minis, so you're trading price for randomness.  But if you buy the box, you're guaranteed one of every mini and a duplicate.

Honestly they look good.  If these are priced similarly to previous heroes, I'd actually recommend grabbing a box if you're collecting Death Guard or want a Death Guard kill team.

If you can get them of course.

Other than that we get our Underworlds Preview with a Nighthaunt warband, an Yndrasta book for AoS, a Ciaphas Cain audio book, an Ultramarines audiobook, a new German printing of Harrowmaster, and . . .

Hah!  What!

Another hilarious partnership with Bandai!  Just look at them!  They're so full of character!  Too bad you have to buy 20 OF THEM to guarantee one of each.

10TH EDITION BATTLE REPORT

Finally, we get repeat news, or at least repeat for me as I think I got this in an email, that we'll be able to watch the first 10th Edition Battle Report on May 31st.  It'll be free, even if you're not subscribed to Warhammer Plus.  I'll be making sure I cover that, and might even stream it or something.  They also remind us about the Kansas City Open.  I wish I could hit that up.  It's only 2 hours away or so.  But I can't afford the tickets.

They also add in a reveal for the remaining Faction Focuses that we've all been wondering about.  We're getting Drukhari, Genestealer Cults, Imperial Agents, a combined Focus for the Codex divergent Chapters, and finally Titans!  Hell yes!

I look forward to covering all of it!