9th Edition is a continuation of 8th with a bunch of little rules tweaks, here is the new rework of the Charge and Fight phase for Warhammer 40k.
Looking at the core rules that Warhammer Community dropped as a free downloadable PDF for 9th Edition, we’ll be giving an up-close breakdown of the Charge and Fight Phase for games in 9th Edition. We have to read carefully because a few critical changes have been made.
9th Edition 40k New Rules For Charge & Fight Phase
Starting with your units that are eligible to make a Charge move, unless otherwise stated, you can only charge with a unit that is within 12″ of an enemy unit and did not Fall Back or Charge. You still roll 2D6 as always with one key change being made when you check to see if the charge is successful or not.
Now, You have to end within 1″ of ALL units you declared as a Charge target.
We’ve all been there in 8th Edition. One unit was close but a unit you really wanted to get into melee with was a risky number of inches away. You’ve probably said, “I’ll declare both as a charge target and if I roll low, I’ll at least make it into one of your squads”. Well, you can’t do that anymore. You have to end within 1″ of all of your declared targets or the charge fails.
Next, we have Heroic Interventions. No real changes were made here except you check to see if there is also an enemy model within 5″ vertically of the character. An important note that isn’t new, but is easy to forget is that whoever’s turn it isn’t gets to Heroically Intervene. The person taking their turn is not allowed to Heroically Intervene on a unit.
Chargers Can’t Go Through Walls (Even if you Fly)
This might be difficult to grasp for diehard ITC players but by GW’s 9th Edition standards, NO units can charge through walls/terrain pieces. Your units can”vault” over a terrain piece that is less than 1″ in height but anything over that must be moved around or scaled over, subtracting inches from your charge essentially. Those plasma cutters on your Intercessors and acid spit from your Hormagaunts don’t work anymore!
For models that have the Fly keyword, the only exception that affords them in the Charge Phase is that they can move through other models.
Changes to the Fight Phase- New Ordering
As always, chargers fight first under normal conditions. But now, whoever’s turn it ISN’T, will get to select a unit to fight with first after all the Chargers have gone. In 8th, the charging player currently attacks with all the charging units and then gets to pick another one to fight with that’s already locked in combat before the other player gets to. This is going to be a small, but critical change to account for when you’re considering where to charge and what to fight in 9th Edition.
Moving into the weapons available on your unit, you select the melee weapon to fight with. If your unit has more than one melee weapon, you can delegate how many attacks you want to dedicate to each weapon. You can also select which attacks you can put into which units you’re in combat with (if you’re in combat with more than one unit). Finally, if you’ve got a unit that’s in combat that doesn’t have a melee weapon on their profile, you just use the profile from above. Pretty standard issue.
Finally, once you fight, you may consolidate. The unit that consolidates must move up to 3″ and has to move closer to the closest enemy unit. If you’ve got a model that’s already touching the base of an enemy unit, you can’t move that model.
For the most part, the rules are largely unchanged. The key points to note are that if you don’t make it into combat with every unit you declared as a charge target, the charge is failed. In addition, the player who’s turn it is not gets to fight with a unit first after chargers fight.
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What do you think about the tweaks to the Charge and Fight phase in 9th Edition? Does the rework on fighting priority give a slight bonus to the player who didn’t charge?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
