Hey 40k speculation goons, it’s JStove, and I’m here to tell you that the whole internet is wrong.
Which is nothing new, the internet is always wrong. Moving on.
More importantly, a bunch of other 40k op-ed writers, forum trolls, and rumor mongers were wrong too, and depending on when this article is published, 7th ed is either about to be out in the next 48 hours or so, or is already out and you’re tearing the book apart with your greedy little hands.
Let’s go over the big things we were wrong about in case you have something better to do than chase 40k rumors and haven’t been paying attention.
1) THERE IS NO CONSOLIDATION INTO ONGOING COMBAT.
This is huge. Long time assault fans like yours truly, every tyranid and chaos player, and juiced up gorillas that hang out at FTW Games were hoping against hope that we would be elbow deep inside your army on turn two and that there would be nothing you could do about it. Well, that’s not happening. LOOKS LIKE YOU LIVE ANOTHER TURN, TAU PLAYERS.
2) SNAP FIRE IS STILL A GONG SHOW, SO IS IGNORE COVER
Now these were some rules that would have been interesting if they were true, and I personally think they would have been good for the game, but they’re not. Snapping is still a 6 and Ignore Cover is still pick your models up and take them off the table.
Now, here’s some other interesting developments.
FLYING MONSTERS GET BUFFED/NERFED/CONFUSED
This gets interesting. Big Bird gets harder to shoot down, but can no longer Kool Aid Man through a wall into a fight. Good day for mega shooty birds like the flyrant, not so much for Bloodthirster.
Vector Strike now only hits once, unless you are swiping another flyer- In which case you have d3 again, but now its AP2.
Grounding checks only happen at the end of the shooting phase, only happen once, and only happen if Big Bird actually takes a wound. No more markerlighting a demon prince into the dirt, and you can’t capitalize on it.
Flying monsters cannot assault on a ground turn if they were flying in the previous turn. They must give the opponent a shooting phase on the ground before they go to punch town. He has to stop to preen his feathers.
So what do I think?
Well, actually, I still like it a lot, even as a guy that builds assault armies. Yep, I’m totally cool with it. Because we got these other rules in now, and they’re THE JAM.
Assaulting through cover now just deducts a flat -2 from your charge distance, but if you have move through cover, this goes away. This pretty much means all Beast units are making turn 2 charges, all day, every day, until the end of days. Also, defense lines and barricades were clarified- to assault a unit bunkering behind a pillow fort, you now only have to B2B the pillow.
Another hot item- Vehicles look like they work again. You can still nickel and dime them down on hull points, but the destroyed result on the vehicle damage table has moved up to 7, meaning that only an actual dedicated anti-tank weapon will pop a tank. Extra armor also looks nicer because occupants inside a vehicle can pass a leadership check to ignore crew shaken, and shaken/stunned now takes up half the die on the damage chart. Even the mighty melta gun lost potency to this change- it went from a 50% chance of wrecking anything it touches to a 33%. Chopping down melta guns looks pretty good to anyone who owns land raiders right now.
Personally, I think these 2 changes were really the only thing an assault army player really needed. Lascannons now only score kills on a 6, meltas on 5, and most scary guns that can reliably punch AV14 just aren’t that attractive. The Tfex’s rupture cannon is effectively useless because its AP4, the Tau only have the Railhead, and its looking like the eldar lance weapons are the only real contenders, so maybe we’ll see more of those soon. It looks like tearing down hull points is going to be the only way to get through AV14, so necron players with their glance-happy gauss weapons are probably feeling pretty smug.
I still think Chaos marines are going to be the dark horse comeback kids of 7th edition, and I think they can do it in an assault list. Let’s look at the hot items and discuss why I think this redhead stepchild that was the first book of 6e is suddenly looking hot in 7th.
LAND RAIDER ASSAULT
A land raider full of really spikey dudes flanked by maulerfiends and spawn that are getting halfway up the table on turn 1 is going to be a real thing. You might kill the land raider, you might kill the spawn, or you might kill the maulerfiend, but I doubt you’ll get 2 out of 3. Oh and of course, even if you do get all that, there’s still a heldrake cooking your troops off the objective. Even without consolidation into combat, an aggressive land raider delivery list is looking pretty good. The chaos marines might be stuck with the funky old godhammer raider and not have any fancy crusaders, but they get the best vehicle upgrade a land raider could ever want- The Dirge Caster.
DEMON PRINCE IS GOING TO THE MOON
Specifically, the popular nurgle demon prince. With snap firing still being a 6, and the big bastard not hitting the ground unless he gets wounded, that shrouded jink save is looking pretty great. Why do I like the CSM prince so much more than the DoC one? Well, he’s got no instability, and he can guarantee that he’ll get his power armor, but most importantly, he’s got 3 books worth of artifacts to power himself up with and blow up his psychic phase. The Black Legion book is looking pretty crunchy.
We have an item that gives him an extra psychic level, which is fundamentally another die for his psychic phase, but instead of getting a bonus power with it, he can just explode 18″ and BLIND your opponent’s whole army, which is basically going to cause a lot of trouble for average-low initiative shooty powerhouses like tau and guard. Then we have the also desirable item that grants Eternal Warrior and Adamantium Will. In 6e, A Will was cute, in 7e, a level 3 psyker with A Will is just going to fly into your opponent’s face and shut down his psyker. And he can’t be instant deathed, shot down, or hit with templates while he’s flying? Sounds good.
Then there’s the Chaos Sorcerer, the little mortal that could. One cute little wargear item from Crimson Slaughter, and this guy counts as a demon, so he wont blow himself up on doubles when he summons pink horrors.
Then of course, there’s the real badass in Codex CSM, the best 15 points in the game, the spell familiar. What does it do? Gives the chaos player a perfect psychic phase every turn. Haters beware.
So it looks like in the psychic phase, CSM suddenly has the perfect storm of wargear and fat daddy options to build what looks on paper like a giant brain trainwreck from hell, that also brought a heldrake.
GET IN THE RHINO BOYS, WE’RE GOING TO NASHVILLE TO MAKE IT AS COUNTRY SINGERS!
This isn’t as big of a deal as the fact that CSM is shaping up to be a completely ridiculous psychic army, but it does look pretty great. Since rhinos aren’t going to immediately blow up anymore, and for that matter can even score, small units of cult marines like plague marines and noise marines are looking really, really good. The boys still can’t assault the turn they get out of it, but with the right chaos lord in the detachment, shooty cult marines and their rhino are 2 fearless objective secured units in 1 troop slot. Any plague marine squad can double up on plasmas or flamers and get a combi on the champ, and noise marines will hose anything out of cover with a doom siren and sonic weapons. For most of 6e, CSM had an incredible crisis in the troops department that made the army very boring, the fact that marines in general weren’t looking great and cheap blob infantry was way hotter. With a 35 point transport skulking around the backfield waiting to make an 18″ objective grab though, and a handful of party animals on the bus, MSU cult marines aren’t looking shabby for 7e.
Of course, its not just chaos marines getting power psychic phases. Grey knights with brotherhood of we’re-all-wizards-even-the-spaceship-pilots are looking like they’re going to generate a pile of dice, and Eldar are in the same boat too.
Speaking of Eldar, the pointy ears managed to get even friendlier with each other. Not only did Baron Green Goblin NOT go away, but he even lent his car to Eldrad. Friendly ICs can now hang out in your transports, which means that psycho murder bastard phoenix lords like Jain Zar and Khaslamdunk can jump out of a raider or a venom and go turbo on your army.
Naturally, I’m okay with that because I think Dark Eldar are cool. Its still kind of goofy though. What happens if Kharandras and Drazhar end up sitting next to each other in the back of the same taxi? Awkward.
Checkout what else I have to say HERE!
About the Author: Jack Stover
