Reading 6th Edition - Fluff... & Other!

Nick speaking,

There is a very large junk of the book dedicated to the 41st Millennium Fluff (history), running from page 134 to 303. That's 169 pages of reading about the 40k universe and armies! Personally, I won't be reading this section of the book, I don't mind a bit of fluff for my armies, but I really don't have enough interest to read this amount. I know there are many people who love this side of the hobby, and that is fine, it's just not for me.

With that said, I would be very happy to of had the option to buy the book without the fluff. Maybe a soft back version at the same price as a Codex, nice and easy to carry around without breaking your army from the weight! Would GW really suffer that much if they did this? To be honest, if they made a version like this, I would have bought both books anyway, the big one for my collection and the small one as a kick around book.

After the fluff pages, there are some hobby pages, called the Warhammer 40k Experience. Here, you can learn all about how to 'collect', how to use 'tools', how to assemble, and how to paint your minis with all the items that GW can sell you. Then there are a few pages on Warhammer World and the Thrones of Skulls competition, ending with a few pages showing off some Golden Demon painted models.

Next, there is a section called Battles, which is dedicated to recreating battles fought in the dark millennium. Here, you are encouraged to start making up your own missions and mission special rules, with five interesting example mission listed. After that, you will be able to read all about the expansion books available, like Cities of Death and Planetstrike.

Lastly, there are a few pages on creating your own Campaigns, and then a few more fluff pages that lead you onto the Appendix and Reference pages. These final pages, just like the rest of the book, are very well laid out and have a lot of easy to find, useful information and rule summaries. Overall, it's a massive thumbs up from me for the book and the direction it has gone with the game. I think The Wonders of Warhammer 40k, have just got a lot more fun.

Well, that's it for this series of posts. I hope you have enjoyed 'Reading 6th Edition' with me. I am hoping that I will remember the rules a bit easier from writing them all down! I know I for one, will be using my own posts for references in the future, and hope that they will be useful to you too. I will finish off this series with my all time favourite picture from the new book...

Previous Posts:
6th Edition Rule Book Unboxing
Reading 6th Edition - The first few pages
Reading 6th Edition - The movement phase
Reading 6th Edition - The shooting phase
Reading 6th Edition - The assault phase
Reading 6th Edition - Universal Special Rules
Reading 6th Edition - Independent Character
Reading 6th Edition - Unit types
Reading 6th Edition - Weapons 
Reading 6th Edition - Characters & Challenges
Reading 6th Edition - Psykers
Reading 6th Edition - Vehicle basics
Reading 6th Edition - Vehicle types
Reading 6th Edition - Terrain
Reading 6th Edition - Your army & Allies
Reading 6th Edition - Missions
Reading 6th Edition - Psychic disciplines

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Reading 6th Edition - Psychic disciplines

Nick speaking,

There are five Psychic Power Disciplines that Psykers are able to Generate powers from. Armies are limited to which disciplines they can use, if any at all. The five Disciplines are, Biomancy, Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy. Within each Psychic Discipline are six powers, which are randomly chosen, with the quantity equal to your Mastery level of your Psyker. If you have two or more disciplines to choose from, you are able to mix your random powers from any of the Disciplines you can take.

The powers in each Discipline all have different abilities, as you would expect, with most of them being pretty useful. Each discipline also has a Primaris Power, which is a fixed power that you are able to swap your randomly generated power for, if you should so wish. You can only do this once, per Discipline, but it does at least let you drop any power you roll that you think might not be useful to you. As we discussed in the Psykers post, each power takes up a certain amount of Warp Charge when you use it.

If a Psyker rolls the same power twice, you must re-roll until you roll a different power, although it is possible for two different Psykers to have the same power in one army. I will let you pick the bones out of whatever Psychic Disciplines and Powers are available to your armies, but personally, I think I will wait until I have a good few games under my belt before I start to experiment. I am still not convinced that swapping fixed powers, that you know how to use, like Doom and Fortune, for some randomly generated powers that are going to be different each game, but I have to say, I am liking the Divination powers...

The Psychic powers themselves are categorised to make it easy to know when the power actually happens. The categories are known as, Blessing (start of the movement phase and friendly models gain), Witchfire (shooting attack), Focussed Witchfire (Shooting attack that hits individual models), Beam (shooting attack using a line), Malediction (start of the movement phase, weakens your enemy with no line of sight needed, even in if in close combat) and Nova (Shooting attack that automatically hits all enemy units, even in if in close combat). Obviously, most of the powers listed will only last for that turn and not the whole game, unless you re-cast the power... 

Biomancy

Primaris Power: Smite
Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
12" S4 AP2 A4

1 - Iron Arm
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
Psyker gains +D3 Strength and Toughness and gains Eternal Warrior

2 - Enfeeble
Malediction, Warp Charge 1
Enemy unit within 24", -1 Strength and Toughness and treat all terrain as difficult

3 - Endurance
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
One friendly unit within 24" gains Feel no Pain, It will not Die and Relentless

4 - Life Leech
Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
12" S6 AP2 A2

5 - Warp Speed
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
Psyker gain +D3 to Initiative and Attacks, and gains the Fleet Special rule

6 - Haemorrhage
Focussed Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
12" Toughness test, no armour or cover saves allowed, if dead, randomly select another model within 2" (Friend or foe), if that one is slain, continue the process until the test is saved

Divination

Primaris Power: Prescience
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
12" target unit can re-roll all failed to hit rolls

1 - Foreboding
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
Psyker and unit has Counter Assault and shoot Overwatch at normal ballistic skill

2 - Forewarning
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
12" target unit has 4++ save

3 - Misfortune
Malediction, Warp Charge 1
24" one enemy unit re-rolls all successful saves

4 - Perfect Timing
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
Psyker and units weapons ignore cover special rule

5 - Precognition
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
The Psyker can re-roll all failed to hit and wound rolls, as well as saves

6 - Scrier's Gaze
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
Roll three dice and chose the result you want when rolling for reserves, Outflank and Mysterious terrain

Pyromancy

Primaris Power: Flame Breath
Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
Template S5 AP4 A1 Soul Blaze

Soul Blaze:
If the unit suffers one or more unsaved wound, at the end of each turn roll a D6, On a three or less the flames die out, on a four or more the flames continue. The unit takes D3 S4 AP5 hits. The wounds are allocated by the controlling player and cover saves are not allowed

1 - Fiery Form
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
Psyker gains 4++ save and +2 strength, his close combat attacks are Soul Blaze

2 - Fire Shield
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
One friendly unit has a 4+ cover save from shooting attacks, plus a form of Hammer and Wrath

3 - Inferno
Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
24" S4 AP5 A1, Soul Blaze, Blast, Ignores cover

4 - Spontaneous Combustion
Focussed Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
18" target model suffers a wound with no armour or cover saves allowed, if dead, has an extra Blast attack

5 - Sunburst
Nova, Warp Charge 1
6" S4 AP5 Assault 2D6, Blind, Ignores cover

Blind:
Any unit hit by a blind weapon must take an initiative test, if failed, all models in the unit are reduced to weapon skill and ballistic kill one

6 - Molten Beam
Beam, Warp Charge 1
12" S8 AP1 A1, Melta

Telekinesis

Primaris Power: Assail
Beam, Warp Charge 1
18" S6 AP- A1, Strikedown

Strikedown:
Any model that suffers one or more unsaved wounds or passes one or more saving throws from this attack. They will half their Initiative and move as if in difficult terrain. Vehicles and monstrous Creature are immune

1 - Crush
Focussed Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
18" 2D6, target receives a hit equal to result rolled, if more than ten rolled auto wound or penetrating hit

2 - Gate of Infinity
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
Psyker and unit can move via deep strike up to 24"

3 - Objuration Mechanticum
Malediction, Warp Charge 1
24" one target unit must re-roll to hit ans wound rolls of a six, vehicles are hit with a Strength 1 Haywire hit

4 - Shockwave
Nova, Warp Charge 1
12" S3 AP- Assault D6, Pinning

5 - Telekine Dome
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
12" friendly unit has a 5++ against shooting attacks, every save is deflected back to any unengaged unit with 6"

6 - Vortex of Doom
Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
12" S10 AP1 H1, Blast which will hurt the Psyker also if he fails his Psychic test.

Telepathy

Primaris Power: Psychic Shriek
Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
12" Roll 3D6 and subtract targets leadership, a number of wounds are received equal to the result with no armour or cover saves allowed

1 - Dominate
Malediction, Warp Charge 1
24" One unit must pass a leadership test each time it moves, shoots, runs or assaults or they do nothing

2 - Mental Fortitude
Blessing, Warp Charge 1
24" One friendly unit that is falling back automatically regroups and gains the fearless special rule

3 - Puppet Master
Focussed Witchfire, Warp Charge 1
24" The target shoots at one of it's own forces, but not into his own unit

4 - Terrify
Malediction, Warp Charge 1
24" Loses the Fearless Special rule if it has it, and treats all enemy units as having the Fear Special rule

5 - Invisibility
Blessing, Warp Charge 2
24" Friendly unit has Shrouded and Stealth Special rule. if the unit charges, enemy cannot make use of Counter Assault and are at Weapon Skill one

6 - Hallucination
Malediction, Warp Charge 2
24" One enemy unit suffers one of the following hallucinations...

1-2 - Bugs! I hate bugs!
Unit is pinned unless they ignore it or are locked in close combat

3-4 - Ermmm?
The unit cannot shoot, run declare charges or strike blows in close combat

5-6 - You! You're a Traitor!
Every model inflicts a single hit on his own unit, resolved at that models own strengths, but using the strength bonuses, AP values and special rules of their most powerful close combat weapons if they have any

Lastly in this series, fluff... and other!

Previous Posts:
6th Edition Rule Book Unboxing
Reading 6th Edition - The first few pages
Reading 6th Edition - The movement phase
Reading 6th Edition - The shooting phase
Reading 6th Edition - The assault phase
Reading 6th Edition - Universal Special Rules
Reading 6th Edition - Independent Character
Reading 6th Edition - Unit types
Reading 6th Edition - Weapons 
Reading 6th Edition - Characters & Challenges
Reading 6th Edition - Psykers
Reading 6th Edition - Vehicle basics
Reading 6th Edition - Vehicle types
Reading 6th Edition - Terrain
Reading 6th Edition - Your army & Allies
Reading 6th Edition - Missions

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Necron 6th Edition Battle Report (not video)

Nick speaking,

After playing a few 500 point test games with my son to see what 6th Edition was all about. It was time to move up to 1000 points and get a game in with my main gaming buddy, and his Blood Angels. We weren't expecting anything but a fun night whilst we tried out and learnt how everything is running. I chose Necrons as my first 6th army as they are the easiest to use and don't have any Psychic powers to worry about.

My Necron list was:

1 x Destroyer Lord, Warscythe, Scarabs, Weave (160)
5x Destroyers (200)
10 x Warriors (130)
11 x Warriors (143)
6 x Immortals (102)
1 x Annihilation Barge, Tesla (90)
1 x Doom Scythe (175)

1000pts

Blood Angels list was something like this:

1 x Dante
5 x Honour guard
8 x Sternguard/Rhino
10 x jump Troops
5 x Jump Troops

Mission: Crusade (five objectives), Hammer and Anvil Deployment

Deployment

Blood Angels
I won the roll off and chose to go second, Blood Angels combat down the ten Jump Marines and put Dantes group and two Marine groups into reserve to deep strike. He then deploys the Rhino with the other unit of Jump Marines behind it. Dantes Warlord trait was one that only worked in the Blood Angels deployment zone so was pretty much useless to him.

Necrons
I deploy the Lord and destroyers to the left, with the two groups of Warriors and Immortals on an objective in a large piece of area terrain, which turns out to be +1 to my cover save, bonus! I stick the Annihilation Barge on my right flank, and reserve the Doom Scythe as per the rules. My Warlord trait was Move Through Cover, which was reasonable for me.

Turn One

Blood Angels
The Rhino Moves 12" and the Jump Marines follow it up, The Marines then run into a ruined building whilst the rhino moves flat out 12" right into my face.

Necrons
I Destroy the Rhino with the Annihilation Barge for the First Blood Victory Point, and then kill a couple of Sternguard who bail out so my Destroyers can't target them. The Destroyers are out of range to the Jump pack guys and have nothing to shoot at. One unit of Warriors shoot at the Jump guys, killing two of them, and the Sternguard fail their Morale check and start running.

Turn Two

Blood Angels
Dante and one group of Jump guys come down right behind my Destroyers, killing them all and bringing the Lord down to one wound with all their Plasma and Melta. The guys in the ruin assault the Annihilation Barge but do no damage, and the automatically regrouped Sternguard shoot my Immortals, who go to ground and stay standing.

Necrons
I move the Lord and join him to the Warriors on the left, as the Doom Scythe comes in from reserve. The Scythe shoots out a few Honour Guard and wound Dante, whilst the Lord/Warrior group wipe out the Jump unit on the left, making good use of Preferred enemy on the unit. Over on the right flank I shoot everything else into the Sternguard killing them down to three dudes and the other Jump unit down to two.

Turn three

Blood Angels
The last reserves come in on the right flank, and it, and the other few guys who are left, shoot my Warriors on the right side, They then assault me, but my Overwatch kills nothing, I loose a few Warriors but hold up in the assault. On the other side of the table, Dante and his two dudes assault my Lord/Warriors, but fail to kill anything! No challenges were done as my Lord was not within the locked in combat range.

Necrons
With only one Jump unit to shoot at, I shoot all my guns into it to kill everyone. I then lose my Warriors on the right to the sweeping advance. My Lord offers a polite challenge to Dante, who fails his Mind Shackle Scarab roll and kills himself, to give me my second Victory Point. The last guy standing fails his leadership and runs away.

Turn Four

Blood Angels
The running Marine automatically regroups and every last marine left shoots and assaults my Lord/Warrior group. I lose the combat by five or so and the unit is wiped out in the Sweep. Blood Angels now consolidate on the objective I was controlling.

Necrons
Blood Angels only have a power fist troops dude and two Sternguard left now, and I am already 2-1 Victory Points up with Secondary Objectives, but now all I have to do is kill three Marines for the table.  I move my Immortals onto one of the other objectives, as I shoot out the last three guys with shots to spare, a total wipe out for a Necron victory.

Conclusions
Warriors still get wiped out in the sweep, as you would expect, but they have got a whole lot better for the points. Tesla Immortals are nice, especially for Overwatch, but after my first three games, Warriors are coming out on top with their Rapid Fire guns (not tried Gauss Blaster Immortals yet though). Loved the Destroyer Lord, Shackle Scarabs are amazing for Challenges, and he soaks up wounds easily when he is up front (except when you get a dump load of Plasma in your face). I think Plasma is going to be everywhere now, that AP2 is going to be real handy for getting rid of the 2+ save guys. Doom Scythe was fun to use, and I will be using it a lot until everyone has Skyfire! As for playing with the new book, we found the game very free flowing, except for rule checking of course. I did forget that you can still fire Snap Shots when you go to ground, but otherwise I think it went well.

More reports to come...

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Reading 6th Edition - Missions

Nick speaking,

Right, let's get onto actually fighting a 40k battle, and the first thing is secrecy, which is interesting to me as my buddies and I will very often play without knowing what is in each others army, before we deploy. The only thing that you have to declare, are which units are embarked in transport, assuming people are still going to be using transports! There is nothing about looking at each others army list before a game, but You HAVE to let your opponent see your army list after a game, and only during a game if both players agree.

There are six new missions and three new deployment maps. The order in which a game is set up is a bit different than it was before. First you have to roll for one of the six missions, I will have a look at the missions later in the post. Next you roll for the type of deployment, in all three deployments the table is divided into two halves, either long ways (Dawn of War), short ways (Hammer and Anvil) or diagonal (Vanguard Strike), and all three have you deploying at least 24" away from each other. It is at this stage that players choose which of the halves they will be deploying in. Next you set up any Fortifications that have been purchased in your own half and then it's time to set up the terrain.

There are two ways of setting up the terrain from then on, either in a narrative fashion that both players agree to, or as Alternating terrain. To place Alternating terrain, roll a D3 for each 2'x2' section (usually six) and make a note of how many pieces can be placed in that square. Then starting with the player that chose table halves, place one piece of terrain each, alternating until all the table sectionshave their allocated, or until you have no terrain left Both players can choose to stop placing terrain whenever they want, but the other player can continue if they so wish. Shuffling the terrain after it's all down is permitted if you want the terrain to look aesthetically pleasing.

Unless stated otherwise, the player who chose the table halves will also place the first objective, which is the next stage. Objectives have the same limitations that they always have, except they can go within 6" of the table edges. The last thing to do before you start deploying your army is determine what 'Traits' your Warlords have. Which we covered in this previous post.

Deploying armies is done with the usual roll off to see who is going first or second, with Infiltrators and Scouts deploying at the end. As before, the player who deployed first takes the first turn, unless the initiative is seized on a roll of a six. All six standard missions, known as 'Eternal Warrior' missions, use random game turns exactly the same as in 5th Edition.

Victory Conditions

The player with the most Victory Points will win any one of the new six mission. There are various ways to earn Victory Points in the different missions, and these victory conditions are split down into 'Primary' and 'Secondary' objectives. Primary objectives in some missions are the same as the old Kill Points were, but most of them are about capturing objective markers which have different values in different missions.

Secondary objectives are a way to gain extra points for doing certain things during the game. One VP for killing the first unit, One for killing your enemies Warlord and one for having a valid unit in you opponents deployment zone. these are known as 'Slay the Warlord', 'First Blood' and 'Linebreaker'.

Controlling Objectives

Controlling objectives are done the same as in the previous edition, either capturing it with a 'Scoring' unit within 3", or contesting it with a 'Denial' unit the same as before. The big difference here, is that a unit is only able to control one objective at a time! There also have been some changes to what constitutes a scoring and denial unit.

Scoring unit:
Unless stated in the mission, Troops are the only Scoring units in an army, although there are some exceptions when units of Troops are not Scoring. A vehicle, a unit currently embarked on a transport vehicle, a unit occupying a building, a unit with the Swarms special rule or a special rule that says it cannot score and a unit that is currently falling back, are all unable to Score any objective.

Denial units:
All units including troops can Deny an objective if they are within 3" of with the following exceptions. A vehicle, a unit currently embarked on a transport vehicle, a unit occupying a building, a unit with the Swarms special rule or a special rule that says it cannot deny and a unit that is currently falling back, are all unable to Deny an objective. 

Mission Special Rules

Night Fighting

It's all change for Night Fighting and not only that, Night Fighting is in all the missions, well, as long as you remember to roll for it! You will be fighting your battles in the dark on turn one if a 4+ is rolled before deployment. If Night Fight does not happen on turn one, you have to start rolling for it again on turn five onwards to see if it gets dark, on a 4+ it becomes activated for the rest of the game.

When the Night Fight rules are in play, any unit over 36" from the targeting unit cannot be picked out. Units between 24"-36" away are treated as having the 'Shrouded' Special Rule and units 12"-24" away are treated as having the 'Stealth' Special Rule. Targets less than 12" are shot as normal. The only exception is with Scatter shots, who are able to hit units over 36" away if they happen to scatter on them, but of course, they will still be 'Shrouded'.

Reserves

You can now only reserve up to half you army, rounded up. The only exception to this, are units that have to reserve do not count toward the half. A unit and it's dedicated transport count as one, when working out the reserved quantities, but an Independent Characters joined to a unit will count as two, even though you only roll one die to see when the unit comes from reserve.

Reserve rolls are also different now, coming in on a 3+ turn two, a 3+ turn three and automatically on turn four. Your still able to have any reserve bonuses, but a one is always a fail to come out roll. Then we come to the BIG change, unless stated otherwise, a unit that comes from reserve is unable to charge the turn it arrives! As usual it cannot use any abilities that are done at the beginning of the movement phase either.

It's worth noting here, if your army has no units on the table at the end of any game turn, you will automatically lose, regardless if you still have reserves!

Ongoing Reserves

If a unit (Flyer) enters reserve part way through a game, it will always enter play the following turn at the same speed that it left the table. If the game ends when it is in reserve, it is classed as destroyed for any Victory Points purposes.

Mystery Objectives

Some missions use Mystery objectives, theses objectives never disappear of move, but have a selection of different mysteries. Once a model is within 3" of an objective you roll to see what affect it has, although any unit activates the objective, only one scoring unit that is closest to it can benefit from it, if it has any advantages. The mysteries are...

1 - Sabotaged!
At the end of every turn, centre a large blast marker over the objective, and resolve any hits at S4 AP-

2 - Nothing of Note!
Rolling a two does nothing

3 - Skyfire Nexus!
As the name suggests, the controlling unit has the Skyfire Special Rule each time they shoot.

4 - Targeting Relay!
The controlling unit can re-roll any failed to hit rolls of a one when shooting.

5 - Scatterfield!
The controlling models gain a +1 to any cover saves, accumulative with any Stealth and Shrouding.

6 - Grav Wave Generator!
Any unit attempting to charge the controlling unit halves their charge distance.

The missions

1 - CRUSADE
Primary - D3+2 Objectives
Secondary - Slay Warlord, First Blood and Linebeaker
Special Rules - Night Fight, Mystery Objectives and Reserves

2 -PURGE THE ALIEN
Primary - Victory Points (Kill Points)
Secondary - Slay Warlord, First Blood and Linebeaker
Special Rules - Night Fight and Reserves

3 - BIG GUNS NEVER DIE
Primary - D3+2 Objectives plus one Victory Point for each Heavy Support destroyed
Secondary - Slay Warlord, First Blood and Linebeaker
Special Rules - Night Fight, Mystery Objectives, Reserves and Heavy Metal

'Heavy Metal'
Your Heavy Support units are Scoring as well as your Troop choices, even if they are Vehicles, as long as they are not Immobilised.

4 - THE SCOURING
Primary - 6 Objectives, with random Victory Point values, plus one Victory Point for each Fast Attack destroyed
Secondary - Slay Warlord, First Blood and Linebeaker
Special Rules - Night Fight, Mystery Objectives, Reserves and Fast Recon

Fast Recon:
Your Fast attack units are Scoring as well as your Troop choices, even if they are Vehicles, as long as they are not Immobilised.

5 - THE EMPEROR'S WILL
Primary - 2 Objectives (Capture and Control)
Secondary - Slay Warlord, First Blood and Linebeaker
Special Rules - Night Fight, Mystery Objectives and Reserves

6 - THE RELIC
Primary - 1 Objectives that your models can pick up
Secondary - Slay Warlord, First Blood and Linebeaker
Special Rules - Night Fight, Reserves and The Relic (extensive rules for moving The Relic)

Previous Posts:
6th Edition Rule Book Unboxing
Reading 6th Edition - The first few pages
Reading 6th Edition - The movement phase
Reading 6th Edition - The shooting phase
Reading 6th Edition - The assault phase
Reading 6th Edition - Universal Special Rules
Reading 6th Edition - Independent Character
Reading 6th Edition - Unit types
Reading 6th Edition - Weapons 
Reading 6th Edition - Characters & Challenges
Reading 6th Edition - Psykers
Reading 6th Edition - Vehicle basics
Reading 6th Edition - Vehicle types
Reading 6th Edition - Terrain
Reading 6th Edition - Your army & Allies

That's it, 131 pages of rules done! Next is to skip to page 418 to have a look at psychic disciplines...

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