Games Workshop is keeping strong with their post a day leading up to the release of 8th edition. Today we’re getting a look at Datasheets.
Warhammer Community just revealed Datasheets and how they are going to work in 8th edition, let’s see what they had to say.
Universal special rules are out, and all the rules for a unit will appear on its datasheet. No more lugging a demi-library of books to every game night to ensure you have all the rules you need. Even the rules for weapons will be on there for the most common weapons the unit is likely to be equipped with. The best way to show you is with an example. We’ll be using the Rubric Marines Datasheet, as requested by Marco Tonino on our Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page.
At the very top left, we have the Troop icon, which represents the unit’s battlefield role. In this instance, they are a Troops unit for a Thousand Sons force, though they can also be used as an Elite unit, in a wider Chaos Space Marines force (maybe belonging to a Sorcerer pledged to the Black Legion or a renegade warlord).
Next to that, we have Power Level, which we’ll look at in detail tomorrow, but for the moment, suffice to say that it is a quick and easy mechanism for balancing in less competitive narrative or open play games.
Then we have the unit profile. You can see the Rubric Marine is, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite similar to the Tactical Marine we’ve seen already. These guys are a little slower than their non-dust brothers, whereas the Sorcerer leading the unit is faster and a more deadly close combat fighter with his extra attack.
Wargear options are listed next, along with stats for their weapons. Most units have all their weapons on their datasheet, though some with a lot of options (Space Marine Tactical Squads, for example) will list only the most common.
Next we have Abilities. Universal special rules are out, so any time a unit acts differently to what its stats might indicate, the rules for how will be in here. The bulk of these rules will be written in full, but there might occasionally be an army-wide or very common rule for a given faction that isn’t (like the Death to the False Emperor rule you can see above). These will always be in that same publication, though, to make finding it easy.
After the special abilities and psychic powers are the keywords. There are two types of these.
The first, faction keywords, are what you use when selecting your detachments for a Battle-forged army, and often trigger in-game effects regarding what units gain benefits from certain Characters or can travel in specific Transports.
Other keywords are not involved in selecting an army, and usually have more general battlefield effects – for example, perhaps only Infantry can gain the full benefit of certain types of cover.
This is the first look at a full datasheet that we’re seeing from Games Workshop. Most units will have all their available weapon options listed right on the datasheet in the Wargear Options section.
Universal special rules are a thing of the past, just like the “<add prefix>-star”. Instead you’ll have rules written out for each unit in the Abilities section any time a unit acts differently.
There may still be army wide abilities and common rules for factions will can be found in the same publication that the datasheets are in. Now we get to the Keywords that we’ve been hearing about. The first type is faction keywords. These are what you will use when selecting your detachments for a Battle-forged army, determine which units can gain benefit from certain characters in-game effects, and travel in certain transports.
The other keywords cover more of the general battlefield effects side of things, and are not involved in selecting your army.
Check back with us tomorrow when they go over points and power levels in the new edition.
What are your thoughts on the new Datasheets? Let us know in the comments below.
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About the Author: James Rodriguez
